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It was on November 10 that Dr. Terry Martin returned to his small and cluttered office in the School of Oriental and African Studies to find a scrap of paper from his secretary placed foursquare on his blotter:

“A Mr. Plummer called; said you had his number and would know what it was about.”

The abruptness of the text indicated that Miss Wordsworth was miffed. She was a lady who liked to protect her academic charges with the possessive wraparound security of a mother hen. Clearly, this meant knowing what was going on at all times. Callers who declined to tell her why they were phoning or what the matter concerned did not meet with her a

pproval.

With the autumn term in full swing and a whole cast of new students to cope with, Terry Martin had almost forgotten his request to the Director of the Arabic Services at Government Communications Headquarters.

When Martin called, Plummer was out at lunch; then afternoon lectures kept him busy until four. His connection with Gloucestershire found its target just before he went home at five.

“Ah, yes,” said Plummer. “You recall you asked for anything odd, anything that did not make sense? We picked up something yesterday at our outstation in Cyprus that seems to be a bit of a stinker. You can listen to it, if you like.”

“Here in London?” asked Martin.

“Ah, no, afraid not. It’s on tape here, of course, but frankly you’d need to hear it on the big machine, with all the enhancement we can get. A simple tape player wouldn’t have the quality. It’s rather muffled; that’s why even my Arab staff can’t work it out.”

The rest of the week was fully booked for both of them. Martin agreed to drive over on Sunday, and Plummer offered to stand him lunch at a “quite decent little pub about a mile from the office.”

The two men in tweed jackets caused no raised eyebrows in the beamed hostelry, and each ordered the Sunday-roast dish of the day, beef and Yorkshire pudding.

“We don’t know who is talking to whom,” said Plummer, “but clearly they are pretty senior men. For some reason the caller is using an open telephone line and appears to have returned from a visit to forward headquarters in Kuwait. Perhaps he was using his car phone; we know it wasn’t on a military net, so probably the person being spoken to was not a military man. Senior bureaucrat, perhaps.”

The beef arrived, and they ceased talking while it was served with roast potatoes and parsnips. When the waitress left their corner booth, Plummer went on.

“The caller seems to be commenting on Iraqi Air Force reports that the Americans and Brits are flying an increasing number of aggressive fighter patrols right up to the Iraqi border, then veering away at the last minute.”

Martin nodded. He had heard of the tactic. It was designed to monitor Iraqi air-defense reactions to such seeming attacks on their air space, forcing them to “illuminate” their radar screens and SAM missile sights, thus revealing their exact positions to the watching AWACS circling out over the Gulf.

“The speaker refers to the Beni el Kalb, ‘the sons of dogs,’ meaning the Americans, and the listener laughs and suggests Iraq is wrong to respond to these tactics, which are evidently meant to trap them into revealing their defensive positions.

“Then the speaker says something that we can’t work out. There’s some garbling at this point, static or something. We can enhance most of the message to clear the interference, but the speaker muffles his words at this point.

“Anyway, the listener gets very annoyed and tells him to shut up and get off the line. Indeed, the listener—who we believe to be in Baghdad—slams the phone down. It’s the last two sentences I’d like you to hear.”

After lunch, Plummer drove Martin over to the monitoring complex, which was still functioning precisely as on a weekday. GCHQ operates on a seven-days-per-week schedule. In a soundproofed room rather like a recording studio, Plummer asked one of the technicians to play the mystery tape. He and Martin sat in silence as the guttural voices from Iraq filled the room.

The conversation began as Plummer had described. Toward the end, the Iraqi who had initiated the call appeared to become excited. The voice pitch rose.

“Not for long, Rafeek. Soon we shall...”

Then the clutter began, and the words were garbled. But their effect on the man in Baghdad was electric.

He cut in.

“Be silent, ibn-al-gahba.”

Then he slammed the phone down, as if suddenly and horribly aware that the line was not secure.

The technician played the tape three times and at slightly different speeds.

“What do you think?” asked Plummer.

“Well, they’re both members of the Party,” said Martin. “Only Party hierarchs use the address Rafeek , or Comrade.”

“Right, so we have two bigwigs chatting about the American arms buildup and the U.S. Air Force provocations against the border.”

“Then the speaker gets excited, probably angry, with a hint of exultation. Uses the phrase ‘not for long.’