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By Root 2256 0

and we went into the street to talk. “Watch out for our guardian angels,” he murmured. “There are six of them today.” I gave him a brief report. He thought for a moment, then announced: “Michel has nothing to fear, but you do. I’ll see what we can do.” He knew we were scheduled to leave Moscow the next day on separate flights to Paris. I was taking the morning Aeroflot flight, Michel the afternoon Air France flight. “Tomorrow is a long way off,” David said. He made a call from a phone booth, issued brief instructions, and came back to my room with me. We chatted about this and that: the magnificence of Moscow’s theater, museums, even the subway. A quarter of an hour later there was a knock on the door. Michel and I started, but David was calm. He opened it, and two men walked in. I had seen them before—probably Israeli security agents. “Get your things ready,” David whispered. “You’ll spend the night at the embassy and tomorrow morning we’ll take you to the airport. It’ll be safer that way.” I was ready in three minutes. I said goodbye to Michel: “If anything happens to me …” He told me not to be a fool, but I could see that he, too, was worried. I could tell from the way he sucked at his pipe. My room had been paid for in advance through Intourist, so we left without stopping at the desk. Two KGB vehicles followed us to the embassy quarter. “Stepped-up surveillance,” David commented. By then it was four or five o’clock in the afternoon.

I was angry with myself for having brought the book. But it had just been published, and the temptation had been too strong. Now I would have to pay for it. On David’s advice I phoned several friends abroad to let those monitoring the lines know that my arrest would not pass unnoticed. “If you don’t see me tomorrow, call Le Monde and Mauriac,” I told Ephraim. “You might have to get in touch with the Times tomorrow,” I told Meir, “and with Senator Javits.” I called Marion but chose not to worry her. “I might have to extend my stay,” I said.

David’s two men showed up at seven in the morning. “Something’s going on outside,” they told us. I gulped down a cup of scalding coffee, and David gave his people instructions: “Don’t let him out of your sight until he boards.” He corrected himself: “No, until the plane takes off.”

Outside, the street seemed quiet and there was no suspicious activity. Still, there were the same KGB vehicles as the day before. I told myself it was going to be all right. Maybe the secret police had simply decided to tighten surveillance of foreigners this week. The trip to the airport was uneventful. A clerk at the Intourist counter even smiled at me. When I checked my suitcase with Aeroflot, a friendly young woman stamped my ticket, issued me a seat number, and wished me bon voyage. But my nerves were on edge as I lined up at passport control. It was a long, slow-moving queue. A Frenchman behind me was reading L’Humanité, the Communist paper. In an effort to relax, I spoke to him. He was an engineer, a Communist Party member on his way home from North Korea. He was annoyed because he had lost his new raincoat, but what the hell, some North Korean comrade would find it, and we had to help those gallant fighters for peace in North Korea, didn’t we? I couldn’t tell if he was serious. Finally, I reached passport control. The official took his time, consulted documents, looked me over, stared. I expected him to pick up the phone or push a button to inform his superiors that they could come and get the enemy of the people. But to my surprise, he closed my passport and handed it back to me. Turning to the two Israelis standing near me, I said, “See? No problem. You can go now.” One of them phoned David and came back shaking his head. “We will stay with you until the plane takes off,” he said.

They had special permits letting them through the checkpoints. Once we reached the waiting room, I felt safe; surely they weren’t going to arrest me in front of all these foreigners. Besides which, boarding was about to begin. The Aeroflot crew had arrived. There were two final checks