Read Online Defection Games (Dan Gordon Intelligence Thriller) by Haggai Carmon - Free Book Online Page B

flight?”
    “Good, please do.”
    All went as planned. I went home, kissed my children goodbye over dinner, made dog-sitting arrangements for Snap, and returned to the airport to catch my flight to Dubai. And so here I was, leaning back in my too-narrow plane seat, crunching dry crackers, thinking what a fitting cryptonym “ Tempest ” was for the operation. I expected Tempest to start quietly and end with a bang.
    My favorite Beethoven Piano Sonata, No. 17 in D minor, nicknamed ‘ Tempest ,’ also alternates between peacefulness and unexpected turbulence turning into a storm.
    As we approached Dubai’s international airport, I could see the famous palm-tree shaped man-made island, with its glittering villas for the rich and famous on each side. They look like something you’d see in South Beach, only whiter, much taller, much grander — all against the blue sea water on one side, and an empty desert backdrop on the other, like some kind of mirage. As I exited the sleek airport terminal, a wave of hot air hit my face. It was a fifteen-minute cab ride to the Hyatt Regency Hotel on the Deira Corniche, overlooking the Arab Gulf at the mouth of Dubai Creek.
    “Welcome, Mr. Van der Hoff,” a neatly and modestly dressed receptionist smiled at me. She quickly gave me my room key card. Hearing her use my new name was strange. ”You’ll have to get used to it , as you did many times before, to other odd names assigned to you ,” declared my little inner devil as I walked to the elevator. I’m now Jaap Van der Hoff, a trader in electronic spare parts with an office in Rotterdam, and an apartment in Paris, where I rarely stay because my business requires constant travel. I roam Europe and the Middle East looking for business opportunities. Divorced, two adult children. One lives in my Paris apartment while he attends the Sorbonne University.
    I had a delicious dinner at the hotel's Al Dawaar, a 25th floor revolving restaurant. The views of the Arabian Gulf, the Creek, and the city of Dubai were spectacular. On one side, the black glassy water; the ancient desert horizon behind it cut by sharp palms. On the other, Dubai—filled with sleek metal and glass structures, whirring and lit, like some self-generating machine. On the following day, playing the part, I scheduled an appointment with the manager of United Gulf Trust, a private banking subsidiary of the Swiss Alpes Bank and Trust.
    “My letter of introduction,” I said, handing him a sealed envelope. Hamid Al Zarwai invited me to take a seat in his palatial office. He was a trim man in his late 40s, with salt-and-pepper hair and wearing a dark, superbly-tailored lightweight wool suit with a vest. His small, gold-rimmed glasses gave him an almost academic air. The temperature outside was 100F, but the windows were tinted and his office was cool.
    He quickly read the letter that Eric had arranged. It was on the letterhead of Templehof Bank, Zurich, a Swiss bank secretly controlled by the Mossad as its proprietary company, without the Swiss government’s or the bank management’s knowledge.
    “What can I do for you?” Hamid Al Zarwai asked in a polite tone. His English was British, and he sounded like the product of a private school.
    “I own a company trading in electronic components for industrial use, and I’m closely affiliated with a much bigger company,” I said. “We are looking for a way to,” I paused, as if looking for the right word, “penetrate into the Iranian market, without alienating the Americans.” I waited for his reaction, but he just continued listening.  The buzz words, ‘ alienating the Americans,’ delivered the message that the type of trade I had in mind was embargoed. It could mean business that violated the laws against sponsoring terror, or those against nuclear proliferation, or even both. I was very familiar with the rules of the U.S Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, and I had no doubt that he, too, shared that