OPERATION MUMMY – PART 1

Espionage Stories are one of the most intriguing verticals of modern storytelling. No wonder they are most adored choice for filmmakers across the world. The James Bond Series, Jason Bourne, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., even Bollywood movies Baby, Bell-Bottom, The Tiger Series being the recent ones. Reason behind this unusual liking that we have for espionage stories is the sheer mixture of suspense, action, the undercover and underground nature, the secrecy and the shadowy essence it carries. Well it is an established fact that we the masses like espionage stories. Hence today I am penning down a secret operation conducted by Mossad the national intelligence agency of Israel and probably the best and the most lethal intelligence unit of the world. It is often said that Mossad answers to no one, it is bound by no rules, once Mossad decides to take someone down they take him down. Mossad has a number of deadly and impossible missions to its name, I’ll probably cover them one by one. Before this I had covered Operation Wrath of God in my article Bayonet, today we uncover the story of Operation Mummy.

It was 18th November 1964, the winter had taken a toll in the capital city of Italy. Rome was freezing cold and to top that cold blizzards and rainfall had forced people to tighten their already thick winterwears. Amidst the drizzle three officers from Italian customs were standing near an U.A.E airlines plane at the runway no. 6 of Fiumicino Airport. The plane was supposed to fly for Cairo but even till now when the scheduled time had already passed there was no sign of the pilot or the passengers. The Italian officers were trying to extract some warmth out of their breath when they notice that a van with the U.A.E Arline logo is on its way too the plane. Two Egyptian men walk out of the van, and open the gate behind to take out a metal trunk. The top of the trunk was inscribed with the words DIPLOMATIC LUGGAGE in French, English and Arabic. Both men were struggling to life the trunk which made it clear that whatever this luggage was it was quite heavy.

One of the Egyptian guys signals to the custom officers asking for their help in lifting the trunk, and then turning to his partner he said in Arabic, “ Anyways this should go in animal section.” Both of them start laughing, but they were unaware of the fact that one of these Italian custom officers knew Arabic and was able to understand their conversation. The seed of doubt had been sown, the officer without bearing a single expression on his face wondered , “ Diplomatic luggage, in animal section, Why? Technically it should go in the luggage compartment?” Thinking this the custom officer with his fellow mates moves in order to help those Egyptian guys with the luggage. He notices that the official documentation stuck at the top was inked with “ Property of External Affairs Ministry of Egypt and Egyptian Ambassy, Rome.” This sticker meant that these officers cannot search the luggage even if they want to succumbing to the laws of the Vienna Convention.

But the officers were more doubtful than ever. “ May I ask what’s in the luggage?” the custom officer interrogated, “ Just some musical instruments, it would be great if instead of asking questions you guys can help us out and finish this quickly” musical instruments, no these can’t be musical instruments. And why was the Egyptian guy stammering while answering the question, something was fishy. The Italian officer gathers his grit and bends over towards the trunk. As soon as the Egyptian guy sees this he shouts, “ Move back you s**t, don’t you get this is diplomatic luggage.” However his frantic screams all went in vain as the Italian officer moved close to the trunk and heard something, the custom officer signals the Egyptian guy to keep mum and brings his ear closer to the chest, this time the noise was clear, someone inside the trunk was crying, “ Help, Save me!!”.

As soon as the Italian officer hears this he goes for a button on his remote control, the Egyptian men jump into their van and try to run away but couldn’t do so. The security at second entrance of this airport intercepts them and both of them surrender.

This incident was going to change the history of espionage. Who was the guy in the trunk? Why were those two Egyptian diplomats taking him to Cairo locked like this? Was he being kidnapped? Well many media stories were about to come up, but the reality was something that no one could have ever thought of. A mission which will be registered as one of the greatest in the history.

As the trunk was opened the scenes shocked everyone who were around. A person tied and taped was placed in the trunk in Mummy position, the foul smell was proof of the fact that he had been there for quite sometime now. He was in sedated state and was taken to the hospital for treatment. As the victim recovers he is taken to Police Headquarters in Rome for interrogation. The man identifies himself as Joseph Dahan born in Morocco but now an Israeli citizen. The story that he narrates further was similar to any plot of a fantasy spy novel that kids read. He tells them that he had come to Rome a few days ago and on the evening of 16th November was sitting at Café De Paris in Via Veneto locality. He says that he was visited by two officials of the Egyptian embassy offering him a job as an interpreter, they offer him wine and after drinking he blacks out. When Joseph woke up he found himself lying on a bed in a dilapidated room. He was sedated again and next thing he remembers after that room was he finding himself in a trunk onboard a moving vehicle.

As far as the sedation thing was considered he was telling the truth, he had been sedated with multiple doses of injections, but his kidnapper had kind off messed up the last dose due to which he was able to wake up before the plane took off. But his rest of the story was too childish to be believed, how did the Egyptian guys traced him in a city like Rome? Why did they choose to take him via this crowded area? Joseph was not being able to answer these questions.

Meanwhile the media was cooking up stories of their own, Joseph was being labelled as the mummy man or the man in the trunk. Meanwhile the Israeli and Moroccan embassies deny having records of a man named Joseph Dahan. And the two Egyptians who were carrying Joseph are identified as diplomats from the Egyptian embassy Moseim El Naglawy and Salim Osman El Sayid. Both these diplomats are secretly shipped off back to Cairo and the Egyptian ambassador calls this entire event an Italian conspiracy. The Italian government hands this case over too its intelligence unit the AISI. The first statement that AISI gives about Joseph was, “ His name is not Joseph that’s sureshot.”

Skipping to January 1965, an AISI agent reaches his office when his phone rings, he answers the voice on the other side says, “ Sir I am speaking from Tel-Aviv , 16 hours ago I met woman who claims to be Joseph Dahan’s wife. The Iraqi lady with her kids lives in a town called Peta-Tikva and she said that Joseph’s real name is not Jsoeph but Mordechai Louk.” Before AISI could act on this the news gets published in an Israeli newspaper, after this news gets published four more women come out claiming to be Joseph Dahan’s wife. All four agree that his name was Mordechai Louk. His German wife was so madly in love with him that even after knowing the fact that he cheated she was ready to pay any amount to any lawyer for his release from prison. But Louk denies any legal or financial assistance, it was clear that he wanted to stay in Jail. BUT WHY?

When AISI interrogates these women they get an address of a hotel room in Naples where Louk used to stay. AISI search his room and know why he was avoiding coming out of jail. The AISI recovers a ring with a micro camera, apart from this they extract several costumes, microphones and chips. This confirms the fact that Louk was no ordinary civilian but a spy.

Now let’s go back to 18th November 1964 when this incident took place at the Fiumicino Airport, the two Egyptians get caught and a crowd gathers around them. Two men in the crowd were quietly watching this ongoing show. These two men smile and get in their car. They drive outside the city near a house. They go inside, pick up the phone and dial a number and then deliver a message, “ The bird and the bird-catcher have both flown into the Italian cages.” Both these were agents codename Don and Derek from MOSSAD, the bird was no one else but Louk and bird-catchers the codeword for those Egyptian diplomats.

Both these agents from MOSSAD were following Louk for the past many years, Louk who was an Israeli had committed sedition and was spying for Israel’s enemy Egypt. And those custom officials, well it was not their intuition that prompted them to check the trunk, they had info that Egyptian embassy was trying to smuggle off a person to Cairo and the tip was thrown off by Mossad. And the reporter who had sniffed off Louk’s info, well he was a Mossad agent as well. Once this is done Mossad start working on part two of this operation, an operation they named MUMMY.

Well part two of this operation will come up in the next article of this series, until then do keep wondering and DON’T GOOGLE.