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Its content was later endorsed when Dr. Rice met MI6 director general John Scarlett. He told her the evidence had been “copper-bottomed” by Mossad, and that it was accepted North Korea could have acted only with the full knowledge of China. There was quick agreement that to avert the situation developing into a full-blown crisis, Beijing should be made fully aware of the intelligence Mossad had obtained and asked to exert its considerable influence over North Korea to withdraw its support from Iran. The overt diplomacy that had failed Condoleezza Rice was now about to go covert.

There were further discussions on how the request should be conveyed. It could be done at ambassador level, but there was no guarantee this would be perceived with sufficient seriousness by Beijing. But neither Dr. Rice nor Britain’s foreign secretary, Jack Straw, could jump on the next plane to China; that would create a sense of panic Beijing could well exploit. Yet it was essential to convey to its leaders that North Korea must be stopped and that only Beijing could pressurize a dangerously unstable regime to desist from helping Iran. After hours of consultation by advisers in London and Washington, and finally a secure-line conference call with Tel Aviv to Ariel Sharon, it had been decided that Mossad, who had provided so much of the detail, should once more use its connections with China’s Secret Intelligence Service, CSIS, to convey the seriousness of the situation. “If it is not a full-blown crisis yet, then it will soon be,” said John Bolton.

It was not the first time Mossad had played such a role. In the past it had paved the way for the diplomatic exchange of Egyptian prisoners captured during the Six Day War; it had organized the bridge building that enabled Israeli diplomats to have working relations with Jordan and Lebanon.

All of Israel’s political leaders had used Mossad for covert diplomacy. Some, like Yitzak Shamir, Benyamin Netanyahu, and Ehud Barak, had exaggerated hopes of what Mossad could, or should, achieve; this was largely due to their own past connections with intelligence operations. In Ariel Sharon, Mossad had a political master who had both the temperament and experience to know how to handle the service. On more than one occasion he had tasked Meir Dagan to use the “backdoor” connection to the CIA to raise a politically sensitive matter and test the response in Washington before Sharon formally raised it with the White House. It was Dagan who told Porter Goss that Israel would continue to attack Hamas while still trying to negotiate with the Palestinian Authority. Sharon also well understood that in a high-tech world of intelligence gathering, the human factor remained critical when it came to covert diplomacy. The character of Meir Dagan was perfectly suited to the role and complemented Sharon’s own rumbustious personality that had given him a keen interest in spies and their activities. For the prime minister, it was a natural progression to use Meir Dagan as his own secret diplomat.

“Our kind of diplomacy is based on contacts with other intelligence services. We tell their spymasters what our foreign service people would like to see happen. We know their intelligence people usually wield strong influence with the governments or regimes they work for. In more cases than not, it works very well. The diplomats get the public credit. We have the private satisfaction of a job well done,” Meir Amit once told the author.

Setting up Mossad’s latest venture into the dark side of diplomacy was something Meir Dagan had developed over his three years in office. On his personal computer were the updated names, direct-line phone numbers, and encrypted e-mail addresses of intelligence chiefs in over a hundred countries. His contacts also included diplomats, businessmen, and those who operated close to the edge of legality.

This would be Dagan’s second visit to China. Eighteen months before he had been a member of a delegation that had included General Amos Yaron, the director general of the Israeli Defense Ministry, and a team of the country’s top armaments salesmen. They had come to develop ties that had already produced for Israel over $4 billion in sales of arms and military equipment. Much of it had originally been sent to Israel by the United States, and when Washington had finally objected to Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) selling an early warning system, AWACS, Israel had reluctantly paid $350 million compensation to cancel the deal. Diplomatic relations between Beijing and Tel Aviv, established in 1992, had become virtually frozen.