Triple

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Dreifach is a novel originally published in 1979 by Ken Follett (original title: Triple ). The German edition followed a year later by the Lübbe publishing group. The background to the plot is Operation Plumbat , carried out by the Mossad in 1968 , which only became public knowledge in 1977.

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The book begins with a fateful meeting of several people in Oxford in 1947. The main character is the later Israeli agent Nathaniel "Nat" Dickstein, and the American Alan "Al" Cortone, who is of Italian origin and Dickstein in Sicily, meet saved the life, as well as the Russian David Rostov, who later belongs to the KGB . The three attend a sherry party held by Professor Ashford, who teaches Hebrew literature in Oxford . Dickstein, who studies with Ashford, is in love with his wife Eila, who is also popular with other men. So has z. B. Another guest, Yasif Hassan, who is of Arab origin, has an affair with her, as later shown in the garden. The Ashfords' daughter Suza also appears, and the meeting ends with a game of chess between Rostov and Dickstein, with the latter deciding the game for himself.

In the first episode, the head of the Israeli secret service Mossad , Pierre Borg finds out that Egypt is building a nuclear reactor in the desert of Kattara , with the help of which they want to produce an atomic bomb . He then instructs his best agent, Nat Dickstein, to steal about two hundred tons of uranium ore so that Israel can forestall the potential Egyptian threat and build the bomb itself. Dickstein has to make sure that nobody suspects that Israel is involved in this action, as it would otherwise be outlawed internationally. If possible, no one should ever find out about the theft in order to avoid lengthy investigations.

Dickstein decides to travel to Luxembourg in order to obtain documents on all uranium transports from the local authority EURATOM . He finally succeeds in this by blackmailing an employee of this control authority. In a hotel in the city he runs into Hassan, who is now an Egyptian agent, by chance. As a result of Hassan's research, the KGB Dickstein is on the trail. Dickstein himself chooses a sea transport of yellow cake (a uranium ore) for the coup . The reason for this is, in addition to practical considerations, a successful hijacking of an arms shipment at sea carried out by Dickstein in 1948. The name of the ore carrier is Coparelli .

Dickstein is persecuted more and more stubbornly by Rostov's group (which Hassan now also belongs to); the current high point is the complete shadowing of all Israeli diplomats in London by the KGB. Despite this contingent, Dickstein succeeds again and again in shaking off his pursuers.

He goes to Oxford to see Professor Ashford again. Instead of his former teacher, Suza Ashford, his now grown daughter, opens the door. The two of them have a fairly frank conversation, after which they fall in love. A short time later, Hassan also visits the professor (who has always been pro-Arabic) and tells him about Dickstein's real activities and intentions; both persuade Suza to help eliminate Dickstein. She seems to respond to it in order to be able to warn her lover better. Hassan also plans to steal uranium supplies for the fedayeen , a fundamentalist Arab association, and thus betray Rostov and the Egyptians.

Dickstein obtained a sister ship of the Coparelli to facilitate the raid at sea. He also founds a ( bogus ) shipping company and also ensures that the Coparelli suffers machine damage and that the crew is almost completely disembarked. Dickstein hopes to use even more complicated measures to cover the traces of the uranium theft as far as possible and to at least partially legalize the whole enterprise.

The actual raid is to be carried out from the sister ship Stromberg , but the Israelis Hassan and his fedayeen get ahead. Dickstein's Israelis are able to recapture the Coparelli, however, and Hassan is killed. Dickstein himself then drives to the Karla , on which Rostov, the KGB and Suza are, because she is being held prisoner there. With Suza's help, he manages to cause confusion, to get her off the ship and then to destroy it with a mine .

The story ends with the information that Dickstein has left the Mossad to settle with Suza in Israel. The book closes with a newspaper article from the London Daily Telegraph , published nine years later , with the presumption that any evidence of the theft makes Israeli involvement very likely.

literature