Exodus - Leon Uris [60]
Alistair gathered his papers together quickly. Fred Caldwell had been sitting in cold and fuming anger. He sprang to his feet. “I say we kill a few of these sheenies and show them just who is running this show!”
“Freddie!”
Caldwell turned at the door.
“If you are so anxious I can arrange a transfer to Palestine. The Jews there are armed and they are not behind barbed wire. They eat little men like you for breakfast.”
Caldwell and Alistair walked briskly down the hall. Freddie grumbled angrily under his breath. “Come into my office,” Alistair said. Freddie flopped into a chair and threw up his hands. Alistair snatched a letter opener from his desk and slapped it in his open palm and paced the room.
“Ask me,” Caldwell said, “they ought to give the old boy his knighthood and retire him.”
Alistair returned to his desk and bit his lip hesitatingly. “Freddie, I’ve been thinking for several weeks. Sutherland has proven utterly impossible. I am going to write a personal letter to General Tevor-Browne.”
Caldwell raised his eyebrows. “That’s a bit risky, old boy.”
“We must do something before this bloody island blows up on us. You are Sutherland’s aide. If you back me up on this I’ll guarantee there will be no repercussions.”
Caldwell had had his fill of Sutherland. Alistair was a relative of General Tevor-Browne through marriage. He nodded. “And you might add a good word for me with Tevor-Browne.”
A knock on the door brought in a corporal with a new batch of papers. He gave them to Alistair and left the office. Alistair thumbed through the sheets and sighed. “As if I didn’t have enough on my mind. There is a ring of organized thieves on the island. They are so damned clever we don’t even know what they are stealing.”
General Tevor-Browne received Major Alistair’s urgent and confidential report a few days later. His immediate reaction was to recall Alistair and Caldwell to London and to call them on the carpet for what amounted to mutiny; then he realized that Alistair would not have risked sending such a letter unless he was truly alarmed.
If Tevor-Browne was to follow the advice of Alistair and make a quick raid on Caraolos to upset any plans the Jews might have, he had to move quickly, for although he didn’t know it, Ari Ben Canaan had set the day, hour, and minute for taking the children out of Caraolos.
The British announced that the new facilities near Larnaca were ready and a general evacuation of many of the overcrowded compounds at Caraolos would begin in a few days. The refugees would be moved by truck at the rate of three to five hundred per day over a ten-day period. Ari chose the sixth day as the day.
No tunnels, no crates, no garbage dumps. Ari was just going to drive up to Caraolos and take the children out in British trucks.
Chapter Twenty
DELIVER IN PERSON TO
KENNETH BRADBURY
CHIEF, ANS
LONDON BUREAU
Dear Brad:
This letter and enclosed report from Cyprus are being delivered to you by F. F. Whitman, a pilot with British Intercontinental Airways.
D-Day on Operation Gideon is five days off. Cable me at once that you have received the report. I have used my own discretion on this thing. I feel that it can turn into something very big.
On D-Day will send a cable to you. If my cable is signed MARK that means that everything went off according to schedule and it is O.K. to release the story. If it is signed PARKER then hold off because that means something went wrong.
I promised F. F. Whitman $500 for safe delivery of this to you. Pay the man, will you?
Mark Parker
MARK PARKER
DOME HOTEL
KYRENIA, CYPRUS
AUNT DOROTHY ARRIVED SAFELY IN LONDON AND WE WERE ALL HAPPY TO SEE HER. LOOKING FORWARD TO HEARING FROM YOU.
BRAD
Mark’s story sat safely in the London ANS bureau, to be released on signal.
Kitty moved from the Dome Hotel to the King George in Famagusta when she went to work at Caraolos. Mark decided to stay put at the Dome in order to be on the spot in Kyrenia when the Exodus came in.
He had driven