The Jordanians captured the hit team and you were ordered by your superiors to give them the antidote so Meshaal's life could be saved. Q: You say that during Mossad's attempt to kill Meshaal with poison, your job was to wait in an Amman hotel with the antidote in hand in case one of the assassins was accidentally contaminated. Had I been a teacher or a hi-tech executive, I'd write about those kinds of characters instead - but with the same human intensity and quality. When I write about Mossad, it's because that's where I worked and it's what I know.
The fact you don't read about it is a gauge of its successful execution. Paradoxically, I would say that what Mossad really does is much more demanding, much more dangerous, and much more mind-bogglingly creative than what you get to read about. My characters, like real Mossad people, are somewhere between James Bond and Smiley. But in reality there's no such thing as James Bond, and Le Carre's Smiley is also an extreme portrayal, at the unassuming other end of the dramatic spectrum. Q: Do you therefore sensationalize your story lines? A: There might be a small element of bringing the fictional spies into line with reader expectations of how people in this line of work would look, and what they would be capable of. Petersburg" is required to carry out an assassination, ad hoc, without having gone through the rigorous training that would demand - simply do not happen in Mossad. Some of my fictional devices - say, the undercover tactical unit sent into Lebanon in "Duet in Beirut", or the way the protagonist in "Forbidden Love in St. Q: To what extent do your spy novels reflect real events? A: I am careful not to write anything that could disclose actual Mossad missions or tradecraft, though the portrayal of the kind of people who work there, their dilemmas and deliberations, the interaction between the command and field units, are accurate. Ben-David, 61, spoke to Reuters at his home near Jerusalem about the benefits and drawbacks of taking creative inspiration from real-life espionage. Petersburg" and "Last Stop Algiers" - to follow. The first, "Duet in Beirut", has been translated into English (Halban Publishers), with another two - "Forbidden Love in St. But Mossad stayed with Ben-David and features in half of the books that followed. He says he stepped down after 12 years to spend more time with his family and resume writing. He agreed to avoid the authorial limelight as he embarked on a career of surveillance and subterfuge, including a role in Israel's botched assassination of Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Jordan in 1997. Ben-David had a doctorate in Hebrew literature and four books published when the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad recruited him in 1987. By Dan Williams RAMAT RAZIEL, Israel (Reuters) - For retired Israeli spy Mishka Ben-David, writing fiction was a realization of artistic aspirations he had long suppressed.
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