The Fifth Season Read Online Free PDF Page B

photojournalist’s position in Hong Kong. Mary Jo had not hesitated, thrilled with the chance to be based in the Far East on permanent assignment, the opening providing her with the opportunity to fulfill a lifelong dream. Her self-esteem completely restored, Mary Jo became impatient to get under way.

    * * * *
    â€˜We’re here, lady,’ the cabby announced, bringing Mary Jo back from her reverie, immediately amused that she had been daydreaming. She waited until the driver unloaded her baggage, then followed the lines of other passengers into the main terminal, and onto the shuttle. An hour later, Mary Jo took a final glimpse of the World Trade Center towers and boarded her flight for Hong Kong, her mind filled with anticipation and excitement, the memories of her relationship with Eric Fieldmann now comfortably washed from her mind.

    * * * *

    Israel - Tel Aviv

    Mossad
    Major General Shabtai Saguy sat contemplating the recommendations before him, confident that the Prime Minister would now support the initiatives proposed. The General Staff had approved the covert action, convinced that they had no choice but to proceed. Israel’s ultimate survival depended on neutralizing the growing threat of an Islamic bomb.
    The responsibility for ensuring secrecy over Israel’s complicity in this deadly game weighed heavily, and the Mossad Director sighed, accepting that any disclosure would not only be harmful to the Middle East Accord, but could also wreck Israeli-American relations. He considered the ramifications of discovery, believing that the imminent nuclear threat to his people greatly outweighed these risks. The possibility that Israel could be destroyed in a Moslem nuclear holocaust only strengthened his resolve; the general had mobilized Mossad’s powerful resources in anticipation of a favorable response from the Prime Minister’s office.
    He was reminded of earlier operations conducted under his predecessor’s leadership, and the secrecy which surrounded Mossad and its clandestine activities. The Director frowned, unhappy with recent revelations which he believed undermined the organization’s operational capabilities.
    Traditionally a state secret, the identity of the Mossad director was not widely known until the government had announced his appointment. He was gravely concerned by the gradual deterioration in the level of secrecy surrounding the Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks, more commonly known as Mossad.
    When Director Saguy was appointed, he had inherited a sophisticated intelligence machine second to none, with a staff in excess of fifteen hundred specifically trained and highly skilled men and women. Upon reading Ben Gurion’s words at the time he had first established the organization back in 1951, Shabtai Saguy wondered if Israel’s elder statesman had ever envisaged a Mossad, such as his creation had now become.
    The director reflected on how the original concept had evolved over the years into a highly sophisticated tactical arm, dedicated to Israel’s defence.
    Details of earlier successes attracted unnecessary attention, although the agency’s funding benefited from such celebrated operations as the kidnapping of Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann from Argentina in 1960.
    Saguy was reminded of Israel’s current dilemma as Mordechai Vanunu’s name crossed his thoughts, and how his organization had kidnapped this man and brought him back for trial, charged with revealing details of Israel’s nuclear weapons’ program to the London tabloids.
    And then there were the successful assassination operations which removed a number of Arabs connected to the Black September group, and executed Arafat’s deputy, Abu Jihad, who at that time was considered to be the section chief responsible for all PLO military and terrorist operations against Israel. But it was the Brussels murder of Gerald Bull, the Canadian scientist who had