The Afghan File Affair

By Arthur Kasper

It is the mid-1980s, and journalist Nick Gambles girlfriend, Natalia, is a CIA agent who works at the American consulate in Florence, Italy. When Natalia goes missing, Nick goes on the hunt for the woman he lovesand turns up so much more than he expected.

Natalia has been kidnapped by Italian mobsters, under the employment of Arab terrorists. A film is missingone that exposes the names of Arab terrorists trained in East Germany and sent undercover to America in an effort to install Muslim sharia law. Natalia will be executed if the film is not recovered, but Nick has no clue where to start.

With the help of the American Mafia and Italys secret police, Nicks comfortable life as a journalist is turned upside down as he learns the truth about terrorist cells in Europe and their horrific plans for the future. He is driven to save Natalia, but the reality of the Arab master plan is much more terrifying than anyone could have expected.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 7, 2013
• ISBN: 9781475990355

Arthur Kasper

Arthur Kasper is a retired chiropractic physician who worked as a photojournalist after college and during military service. He lived in Europe for several years and has visited most countries including Poland, Germany, and Italy. Dr. Kasper currently lives in Southeast Texas. The Sheriff’s Dream is his second book.

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Copyright © 2013 Arthur Kasper.

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-9034-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-9036-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-9035-5 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 6/6/2013

The cover photo shows: A Muslim terrorist wearing typical military accessories worn for training by East Germans at training camps near Potsdam in the 1980. Fotolia photo.

CONTENTS

Disclaimer

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Thirty-Eight

Thirty-Nine

Forty

Forty-One

Afterword

DISCLAIMER

What you will read between the covers of this book is pure fiction. I used the names of real places where real events took place and changed the names of actual persons in certain instances to protect the privacy of innocent people who were caught up in the events of the time.

I have striven to create a similitude of the real and historical dramatization of what actually took place in Italy and the United States in the mid- to late 1980s. The reader may recognize the historical tapestry that serves as a backdrop for the actions of the characters, most of whom I created in my mind, though some are based on real persons I have either met or discovered through research. Many are actual persons whose names have been made public in news media and other reports that the reader may recognize.

There is no real Nick Gamble or any real Natalia Caparosso, and there is no Moses Cohen.

For Patricia, who made my time in Europe both possible and as enjoyable as it was.

I want to thank the Dario and Tina Andreini family and their daughter, Sandra, who served as my translator; they befriended me and helped me understand the Italian culture and language.

Past things shed light on future ones; the world was always of a kind; what is and will be was at some other time; the same things come, but under different names and colors; not everybody recognizes them, but only he who is wise and considers them diligently.

—Francesco Guicciardini, the Italian historian and statesman (1483–1540) who is best known for his history of Italy during the Renaissance period (1492–1532)

The art of making money is a gift from God.

—John D. Rockefeller

PROLOGUE

T HE FIRST MURDER TOOK PLACE in 1981 during the early morning of a quiet, moonless night at the East German secret police camp near Potsdam, East Germany, where Afghanistan soldiers were trained.

The training camp, not far from East Berlin, was the property of the feared Stasi (Ministerium fur Staatssicherheit, Ministry of State Security for East Germany), and inside the deserted administration building, a single bulb dangling from an electrical wire dimly lit the corridor. Shadows moved slowly along the walls as a man with a camera carefully entered a room filled with filing cabinets. Though it was dark, he knew what he was doing and confidently began to carry out his mission. He used a key to open the lock and then slid out the steel bar that blocked the drawers. He was familiar with the surroundings and knew this was the correct cabinet. With the illumination of a small penlight he held with his teeth, he quickly went to the file folder he was ordered to copy. He laid the folder on a desk, opened it, and began taking pictures of the contents.

His orders had been clear and concise: Get in, get photos, and get out ASAP.

The man’s hands were steady, holding the miniature Minolta spy camera over the document pages as he deftly turned them and recorded them.

The sudden sound of footsteps from the hallway outside the room caused the spy to pause but not to flinch; he was experienced and prepared for sudden interruptions. He was well trained by England’s MI6 secret intelligence service (SIS) for foreign intelligence, and he had performed such work in the many countries to which he was assigned, including the United States, where he enjoyed his stay and where he believed he would one day live permanently.

He had timed the rounds of the guards who always followed the same routine. Confident that no one else would enter the building at that hour of the night, he resumed his nearly finished task.

The footsteps sounded closer.

The man with the camera moved the pages more quickly, knowing there were just a few remaining. He checked his watch and saw that his timing was slightly different from what he wanted it to be. This puzzled him but did not cause him to stop his work.

When he finished, he slipped the camera into a pocket on his pant leg, just below his knee. He paused, listened, and began his exit from the administration building. He felt no cause for alarm.

As he stepped from the file room into the faintly lit corridor, he felt something cold touch the skin of his throat, and a rough-skinned hand tightly covered his mouth.

It was the last thing he felt.

The attacker pulled his knife from the spy’s body, which he slowly lowered to the floor. Then he removed the camera, opened it, and took out the film cassette before leaving silently.

At a time not too distant in the past, the USSR had supported the socialist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan army with billions of dollars in economic and military aid. Later many Afghanis opposed the Soviet-style reforms as anti-Islam and formed a militancy to fight the Soviets. They called themselves mujahideen.

The film, which was later code-named The Afghan File, recorded the names of Islamic Arabs trained by the East Germans who later became Islamic terrorists led by Osama bin Laden, founder of al-Qaeda. Some CIA agents believed a number of those named could have migrated to the United States of America ready to attack the nation from within.

Job One of the United States was to find that film.

ONE

T HE AMERICAN JOURNALIST NICK GAMBLE experienced his first Arab homicidal attack on December 31, 1973, while he was standing just outside the departure lounge of Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Airport. Not far from Nick was Robert Suit, sixty years old, travel editor of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat , waiting with friends to board a plane for New York. There was a noisy, chaotic disturbance farther down the concourse. Some nuns hurried past, and as Suit was later quoted in Time , some girls ran by shouting, There’s a bomb! Get out!

Nick, who had moved to Italy from Los Angeles three years earlier, got caught in the middle of the terror sweeping the country. As an American expatriate and a freelance journalist, he worked throughout free Europe. When anyone asked, he usually replied that there was nothing left for him in the States, and Italy called like a siren’s sound, similar to that which distracted Ulysses and many sailors on their voyages. There was also the divorce after sixteen years of marriage that led to his alienation. He had departed Los Angeles on Alitalia for the land of the famous Italians enumerated in Luigi Barzini’s The Italians: Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Thomas of Aquino, Titian, Vivaldi, Puccini; the sinful Borgias, Casanova; the Medici family, Machiavelli; Galileo, Marconi, da Vinci, and so many more.

As a man of letters (of sorts), it was Nick’s milieu. He was lucky—as a roving reporter around Europe—to find markets for his writing. He sometimes served as a paid stringer for wire services, and at one time, he was hired by the CIA to do odd reporting jobs for the company. And he fitfully worked on a novel.

The first gunfire in the Rome airport sounded to Nick like firecrackers popping. Not far away, the window of the banco di cambio slammed shut. It was just the start of an attack that eventually resulted in bloody carnage: the murder of thirty-one victims in Rome. Arab skyjacking had started five years earlier.

Nick reported, The attackers were Palestinians. They first struck at the airport’s security checkpoint during the early afternoon rush hour. A British stewardess reported that a well-dressed man took a pistol from his pocket as he approached the guards, and immediately his many companions removed submachine guns from the bags they held and began scattering bullets into the crowd.

The gunmen then ran out to the Pan American Flight 110 plane, which was preparing to depart for Beirut and Teheran with fifty-nine passengers and ten crew members on board.

Nick wrote in a dispatch, A clean-shaven, young man in a white sweater threw a smoke grenade into the plane before the crew could close the door. Instantly, there were more flashes when phosphorus grenades went off inside the forward section. Two other grenades were thrown into the rear section, and black smoke quickly filled the plane. One of the pilots estimated the entire scenario took less than two minutes.

From the Pan Am plane, the terrorists ran down the tarmac to a West German Lufthansa 737 jet that had already been commandeered by the second group of guerrillas. On board, besides the pilot and three other Lufthansa crew members were ten hostages who had been rounded up in the terminal and outside on the tarmac. An Italian customs guard had resisted the terrorists and was shot dead outside the Lufthansa jet.

Nick’s account concluded with, At 1:32 p.m., only forty-one minutes after the first shot had been fired, the plane took off with the crew, hostages, and five guerrillas aboard.

Less than four hours later, the ordeal ended in Kuwait, where the hijackers reappeared and claimed they were not criminals but Palestinians. They demanded the release of two Palestinians who were in a Greek prison awaiting trial for an attack at the Athens airport in which four people had been killed.

Kuwait officials reluctant to punish Palestinian guerrillas turned the murderers over to the Palestine Liberation Organization for trial in order to avoid dealing with the problem. After negotiations between the terrorists and Kuwaiti officials, the twelve hostages and crewmen were released.

The targets of Islamic murderers were in one way or another associated with Judaism and Israel; it’s what the perpetrators admitted when they claimed responsibility. They said they were justified by sharia, law of the Quran, the Islam divine book of doctrine written by the founder of Islam, the Prophet Muhammad.

Twelve years later, Nick’s close friend, Dr. Henri Todaro, was mysteriously murdered in his Italian home by Arab terrorists, who like the Rome killers had been trained in radical tactics by East German police in a camp outside Potsdam.

It was now during the 1980s, when Italy was under attack by both Middle Eastern terrorists and other political groups, including the Bader Meinhof and Red Brigade. The Arab members killed innocent civilians in Rome synagogues and airports, they hijacked jetliners and cruise ships, including the Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean Sea, and they blew up US Marine barracks in Lebanon, killing hundreds.

Nick was sucked into this whirlpool of murder and criminal conspiracy that personally affected him.

The frequent killings and the reasons the terrorists gave for their actions would prompt Nick Gamble to recall two things his father used to exclaim: It all depends on whose bull is being gored, and Life is a crucible, a constant series of adjustments.

It was into this crucible that Nick fell by twists of fate and the actions of many men seeking different goals but using the same methods of corruption and murder.

TWO

D R. HENRI TODARO STOOD JUST five feet six inches. He had curly, black hair with traces of white, and his large, brown, kind eyes had crows’ feet on their lateral edges. He gave medical advice and administered treatments with a friendly, assuring attitude. He had been born in Palestine before the creation of the State of Israel and later was displaced by an Arab-Jewish war that claimed his parents. Afterward, he immigrated to Italy, where he graduated from Pisa Medical School and married a local Jewish woman.

During his daily morning routine, he treated patients assigned to him by the state medical system in his ambulatorio on Via della Spina in the Italian city Livorno, location of the country’s second-largest Mediterranean Sea port. It was located halfway between Rome and the French Riviera on the Aurelia, the roadway used centuries ago by the Roman legions marching with Julius Caesar into ancient Gaul, which is now France. In a more recent time, it had been the battlefield for some of the roughest fighting in the last days of World War II when the Allied forces struggled to conquer the fleeing but highly resistant Nazi Army rushing home to protect the fatherland.

On this particular day, Dr. Todaro wore the traditional full-length, white starched lab coat of the medical community, a chrome-plated stethoscope in his right pocket. He placed a small bandage over the red point left from his injection needle and said in Italian to the patient, Come back next week, signora. She smiled and left his office holding her medical records, as is the custom in Italy.

His assistant, Rita, asked, Ready?

Yes, he answered. Rita ushered in the next patient. It would continue like this until one in the afternoon, when Todaro usually took a two-hour pranzo at home, but this day his wife and son were out of town, so he had a light meal of a tuna fish pannino and juice at the Bar Dolli in the center of downtown Livorno. He ate in the quiet sala at the rear on the ground floor of the large office building—Palazzo Americano—built by and used by the Americans as a military headquarters during the waning days of World War II when the Allies chased the Germans north to ultimate defeat.

2ADolli.jpg

Bar Dolli in the Palazzo Americano on Piazza Grande, Livorno, Italy, where Dr. Henri Todaro often had lunch and met friends; where Nick talked with Pete Madrid. Photo by author.

As he was finishing his lunch, he was approached by an army medical doctor dressed in casual attire. He spoke to Todaro, Henri, we’ve organized a tournament at the golf course. Shall we count you in for the weekend?

I’m sorry, colonel, but I’m leaving for Nervi to join Lilliana and Maurizio. They’re visiting her parents. But next time, I’d love to join.

After the colonel shook Henri’s hand and departed, Henri opened his local newspaper and read it, as he always did while enjoying his cappuccino made with Arabic coffee, before returning to his office of waiting patients and work until after dark.

After his last patient, Henri Todaro said Buona sera to Rita, locked the outside door of his ambulatorio, and went to his car. It was a dark, warm summer evening. He inhaled the salt air drifting from the sea. It was relaxing. This made him look forward to the drive north to join his wife and son. As he started toward the Autostrada, he remembered the photographs he wanted to show his in-laws: underwater color pictures he took while scuba diving at the Israeli town of Eilat on the Red Sea. Some of his photos were of dolphins taken at Dolphin Reef. So he turned around toward his home.

His plans to drive north suddenly changed.

2BTurtle.jpg

Henri photographed many underwater animals like this sea turtle. Fotolia photo.

THREE

E ARLIER THAT AFTERNOON, NAEF ZAWAHIRI had driven four members of his terrorist cell to Todaro’s building, where he parked and waited. Naef was commander of the local Palestinian Liberation Cell (PLC) who reported to Imad al-Kaussouni, one of Osama Bin Laden’s former bodyguards whom he had appointed to lead the PLC terrorist action in Italy from his headquarters in the Milan al-Koog Mosque. Al-Kaussouni had instructed Naef’s group to search the casa of Dr. Todaro for any evidence that he betrayed the jihad . Most Muslims claim that the meaning of jihad is the internal spiritual struggle. However some believe that it is the military struggle, a holy war to defend Islam, with force if necessary.

Todaro believed in the former.

However, as a member of the al-Kaussouni group, he secretly worked for the Israeli Mossad, his effort to bring peace to the Arab-Israeli struggle.

Al Kaussouni was a Saudi Arabian and a proponent of the extreme Wahhabi Muslim doctrine, a term commonly given to a strict Sunni sect of Islam, which counts among its adherents Osama Bin Laden (OBL) and Saudi Prince Nayef, and groups such as al-Qaeda, Pakistan’s Jamaat-e-Islami, the Islamic Salvation Front, and al-Jihad. In 1932, the Sa’uds had given their land the name Saudi Arabia. And so was created the Wahhabist kingdom that exists today.

After bin Laden had formed his terrorist organization, al-Qaeda, he issued a fatwa—a religious command—for his brand of a jihad against friends of Israel. The fanatic claimed that a major aim of the United States was to serve the Jewish State of Israel, which OBL considered a crime against Allah.

Todaro didn’t believe in violence and didn’t want to be a part of the terrorist group, but he wanted a two-state solution for the troubles in Israel and Palestine. Also, he feared for his wife’s life because the PLC waged war against Jews. However, after he was contacted by a member of the Israeli government, Moses Cohen, and after discussing it with his wife, Todaro agreed to join the PLC and provide information.

Naef’s mobile phone rang. Yes?

The voice at the other end said, Todaro returned to his office from lunch, and he’s packed for his trip. You needn’t fear he’ll return.

Naef Zawahiri lit another English Player cigarette with a sterling silver Dunhill lighter and said to his passengers, It’s time you go to Todaro’s home.

His passengers were experienced mujahideen fighters, Muslims struggling against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan, and all but one had graduated from the Farouq and Khalden training camps in Afghanistan, set up by Osama bin Laden for teaching the art of guerrilla war. They eagerly moved.

One of the men, Abul Mughasil, said, Are we sure he’s not home?

Naef answered, That was a call from our witness. Todaro is at his office.

Three of the five men in the car reached into their bags and removed nine-pound, 34-inch automatic assault machine guns with 16-inch barrels, set the safeties, and inserted 40-round magazines. They heard the solid click of the locking lugs. Each weapon was capable of dispensing 600 rounds per minute. The men reinserted the weapons into their bags.

Naef pointed to the rear car door and made a circular motion in the air with his hand. It was time for his men to begin their task.

FOUR

I F ONE HAD OBSERVED WHAT was later reconstructed by police, he would have seen three unremarkably tall men holding athletic bags step out of the Lancia and walk briskly with purpose, led by Abul Mughasil as the point man, across the Viale Italia to the seven-story seaside condominium building overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, where Dr. Todaro had his home in the area known as Ardenza Mare, a part of Livorno twenty miles southwest of Pisa, Italy.

Abul’s group walked quickly through the unlocked entrance.

Police deduced the men made their way to the elevator through the empty foyer, past a vacant stairway, and into the bare corridor. Their first task was taking a ride to the top floor, where it was a matter of fifteen paces from the elevator to the five concrete steps leading up to a steel door to the roof. Abul Mughasil opened his bag and removed a tool with which he neatly separated the lock from the steel door hasp. Then the men stepped onto the gravel roof.

After slipping into tan coveralls and taking leather gloves from their bags, the men tied 60-meter-long, 9.8mm diameter climbing ropes to metal pipes. They slung their weapons over their shoulders and noiselessly, like rock climbers, belayed down to the balcony below. After a pause to listen, Abul, his automatic weapon ready for action, motioned for his companion to slowly slide open a wide glass door left unlatched.

They entered the casa of Henri Todaro.

Naef, sitting and smoking behind the wheel of the Lancia, stirred at the sudden words coming from his portable Motorola transceiver radio, Abul’s voice in Arabic, We are inside.

Praise Allah. I am coming up, said Naef. He turned to Abaya seated beside him. Stay here and call me if Todaro shows up.

Naef led the other burglars slowly throughout Todaro’s casa, carefully making a written inventory because he was determined to find and disclose evidence that Todaro was a traitor to the jihad. Al-Kaussouni had gotten intelligence that Todaro was a counter-terrorism agent for the Israeli Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks, commonly known as Mossad. According to the intelligence, Todaro had infiltrated the PLC and was reporting on its activities to his controller, Moses Cohen. Todaro had been betrayed by an Israeli agent needing money to fund his rakish, lavish lifestyle, and for this he was given thirty thousand American dollars, most of which was later retrieved when the agent was murdered in his Jerusalem home.

Abul told Naef, We’re not finding anything.

Keep looking.

Naef’s radio crackled. It was Abaya: Todaro’s come back.

Abaya watched Todaro pull his car in front of his condominium building and park. The doctor didn’t pay attention to the large, brown Lancia parked across the street where Abaya was watching him as he told Naef, He’s going into the building.

Naef replied, We are ready for him.

FIVE

D R. TODARO WAS STARTLED WHEN he entered his home to find Naef holding an automatic machine gun close to his face.

Avanti, Dottore, Naef said. We are friends who have come to visit you at the invitation of al-Kaussouni.

If you are friends, why the gun? asked Todaro. He entered his home and looked cautiously around his living room at each of the men pointing guns at him. He did not smile, and he did not appear to be afraid. Why did you break into my home? he asked calmly.

Naef said pleasantly, Please be seated. There is much to talk about.

I’ll stand.

I found this on your nightstand, Doctor. Naef produced a copy of the Talmud. You know this is forbidden.

My wife is Jewish, as you know, and this is the reason for the Talmud.

That’s no excuse.

Todaro shouted, How dare you illegally enter my home and confront me like this! I will call the police if you don’t leave this minute.

Naef laughed. I do not think so, Henri. We come only to talk. Ever since you joined our cause, your ass belongs to the group. Now sit down and listen.

You do not control my private life.

Naef growled, Yes, we do. He shouted, What happens in your private life affects what you do for the jihad! Naef sorted through some papers in his bag. He explained, I have orders to investigate you.

Todaro calmly lit a hard, dark Toscana cigar and tried not to think of the worst thing that could happen to him. He always knew there was a chance that one day Naef would visit him. While he was not totally prepared for such a visit, he was glad his wife and son were safely out of town. Todaro wondered if he had been careless, left some damaging evidence. What happened to arouse suspicions? It had been three years since he joined the PLC, and he always acted in ways that would make him a trusted member.

The valuable intelligence that Todaro provided the Israelis kept them informed of the extremist group’s movements and actions. It was Todaro’s personal way of trying to secure peace in the region where he was born.

Naef broke Henri’s mind-wanderings: We found the radio, Doctor. It had been in a false bottom of the guardaroba, a typical Italian portable closet. Whom were you communicating with?

Todaro answered naturally. I had the radio in case I had to quickly contact you.

How would you do that? You know we change the frequencies daily.

I thought I could get that information when I needed it. By the way, what are the current frequencies? He produced a pen and paper to copy the information.

Naef scowled. I am not a fool. You won’t need the frequencies. He stood.

Todaro remained calm and asked, Why am I being interrogated?

"Because al-Kaussouni thinks you are a kefir, a serious security risk."

What do you think, Naef?

It does not matter what I think. I am following orders. Open your safe.

Inside the safe were stacks of American hundred-dollar bills, some personal papers, and a Colt .38 special resting beside three boxes of ammunition. Todaro was the custodian of funds and was the paymaster for PLC terrorists in his jurisdiction.

Naef said, Abul, count the money. After Abul gave an accounting, Naef turned to the physician. Five thousand dollars is missing. Where is this money?

Todaro answered, I disburse the money only as instructed. I keep no records, as ordered. We don’t want anyone knowing the recipients, do we? There was contempt in his voice. So I can’t really answer your impertinent question.

Naef snapped his fingers. His colleague slapped the doctor’s face. Todaro regained his composure. Naef waved his gun in front of Todaro’s face, nearly striking his nose. I think you stole this money, Doctor.

I stole nothing. When did you last make an audit?

Another snap of Naef’s fingers, and the man to his left punched the physician in the cheek, creating a small cut that bled onto Todaro’s white shirt.

We could kill you just for reading the Talmud trash, Naef said.

But you won’t, snarled Todaro, because you need me to handle the financing of our work here. Who else has a better cover than me—married to a Jew? Eh?

Naef changed the subject. When were you last in Egypt, Doctor?

A month ago.

Why?

To photograph fish. It’s my hobby. And you know that. He smiled. Surely you saw my scuba equipment and cameras.

Yes. Where are the films you brought back?

Henri dabbed a cloth on his facial cut. Interesting you should ask. I just finished cataloging and labeling them before placing them in albums. He avoided mentioning his most immediate trip.

Get them, ordered Naef. When he had finished looking at all the pictures, Naef asked with disbelief, All you photograph are fish?

Unless there is something interesting like an underwater wreck of historical value or a buried city like that of King Herod. He was relaxing. He was discussing the fourth love in his life behind his wife, his son, and his practice of medicine.

You go there alone?

Not always. I have a friend, a pharmacist whose mother is Egyptian. We often go together to Sharm el Sheikh on the Red Sea to take pictures of the fish. He likes to bring home poisonous snakes. Henri smiled again.

Naef asked, You like Egyptian food, Doctor?

On occasion.

His interrogator waved a hand in a circle. In fact, you like Egypt. Is that not true?

Why yes. Egyptology is very intriguing.

Naef asked, What goes on at the Ramesses II restaurant in Florence? Hmmm?

Henri answered, I don’t know what you mean.

You often go there, correct? asked Naef.

For Egyptian food when I’m in Firenze, yes. A crime?

Perhaps. You associate with Mubarak-loving Egyptians? You give them intelligence to fight the jihad?

Todaro said, I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I don’t care.

Now, exclaimed Naef, "we cut to the chase, as they say on Hawaii Five-O. Do you recall a certain piece of highly secret information you were told by our man in Milan?"

I often get secret information. Please be specific, Naef.

The planned attack on the Rome Quirinal, the government. You recall now?

Yes, Henri said, his throat getting dry.

Can you explain how this information reached Yasser Arafat?

How should I know?

Naef stepped closer. Because no one but you knew of this. It was false intelligence planted to ensnare you as a traitor to the jihad.

Henri shouted, Don’t call what you do jihad! The true jihad is one’s inner struggle against evil, one’s struggle to be the best. You pervert it to mean murdering innocent men, women, and children in the name of Allah.

Naef ignored the outburst and said, Your Mossad control passed the information to Arafat, hoping he would help avert the killings. You know Arafat hates us.

Todaro fought the fear creeping into his guts and muscles. He did not want to show he was afraid. These are all lies.

Naef continued, Perhaps you use your radio for other things than trying to contact me? No?

No.

Naef snapped his fingers. Abul punched Todaro in the ribs. The blow knocked him onto the floor. He slumped. He would tell them nothing. He began to fear for his life and those of his wife and son. After two hours of exhausting questioning and torture, he did not admit to passing information outside the PLC.

Naef shouted, Now tell me why you should live, traitor!

Todaro answered, I am no traitor. I do only what I am told.

Naef laughed. Told by whom? Your Jew contact? Arafat? Todaro remained silent. Naef said, If you live, you will betray us again. We cannot allow that. And you do not believe in our just jihad. You have been brainwashed by the infidels. By your Jewish bitch wife.

Naef motioned,