as a liaison between the Palestine Liberation Organization’s head-
quarters and its offices in Europe. That same year, Boudia was tar-
geted for assassination by Committee Xafter the 1972 Munich mas-
sacreas part of the Wrath of God Operation.
In 1972, Boudia sent a terrorist gang to Israel, including Evelyn
Barrage, the sisters Nadia and Marlene Bradley, and a strange elderly
couple. Barrage ran the box office at Boudia’s theater and was his
mistress after work. When the gang landed at Lod airport in Israel,
nothing suspicious was found in their luggage, but the security
guards discovered that their clothes, toiletries, and sanitary towels
had been soaked in a special explosive material that had dried. The
elderly couple had detonators hidden inside a radio set, and they
planned to create several bombs and place them in hotels in Tel Aviv.
The entire gang was arrested for questioning.
Under interrogation, the detainees revealed information about
Boudia to the investigators. In Paris, Boudia apparently realized that he
was being sought. However, tailing him proved to be difficult, given
his access to theater disguises and his uncanny ability to change iden-
tities and addresses in rapid succession. When the Mossadoperatives
were on the point of despair, they laid a trap for Boudia in the pedes-
trian passageways under the Place d’Etoile (now Place Charles de
Gaulle) and the Arc de Triomphe. They knew that he customarily
walked that way each morning, but they did not know which of the 12
subways he would choose. On the morning of the operation, the
Mossad agents took their positions alongside Israeli students who were
studying in Paris and had been specially recruited for this purpose.
They all scanned the crowds of thousands for Mohammed Boudia, and
then the unbelievable happened: he was spotted. From that instant, his
trackers never let him out of their sight. A few days later, on 28 June
1973, Boudia awoke in the abode of one of his lovers and breakfasted
as usual. When he got into his car parked on the Rue de Fosses Saint-
Bernard and switched on the ignition, the car exploded. The mission
was finally, but successfully, accomplished by the Kidon team.BRANCH 2.The Jordanian and Arab Peninsula desk in Military Intelli-
gence(MI). After the 1973 Yom Kippur War, all of the branches in the
MI were renamed theaters. See alsoCENTRAL THEATER; SOUTH
THEATER.BRANCH 2•5106-102 (02) A-G.qxd 3/24/06 7:23 AM Page 51