Mishka Ben-David has gone from a secret undercover life as a top operative for Israel's intelligence agency to a writing career that has landed his name on the covers of hit spy thrillers. A Mossad operative for 12 years, Ben-David was at the center of the 1997 botched assassination attempt on the life of Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal. It was Ben-David who handed over to the Jordanian intelligence the antidote that saved Mashaal's life in exchange for the two captured Mossad agents who injected the Hamas leader with poison in broad daylight on a street outside his office in the Jordanian capital. Making his literary debut in the UK with the first English translation of his spy novel Duet in Beirut, one of five thrillers he has penned, Ben-David reveals his life as a Mossad agent shaped much of content in his thrillers. "Everything that I write is very similar to reality. The operations are very similar to reality, definitely the way they are being planned and executed -- it is very similar to reality -- the kind of people that do this, I describe not specific people, but real people," Mishka Ben-David told Reuters. Duet in Beirut centers on an expelled Mossad agent who takes it upon himself to finish a failed assassination attempt on the life of a Hezbollah operative. The protagonist's former commander sets out to stop the agent, delving into the moral dilemma of their roles. Ben-David says his fiction concentrates on the few instances when things go wrong, but he adds it is very rare in real life. "I do not exaggerate that one out of a 1000 operations go wrong. ... Obviously the operations that go wrong are the ones that get all the publicity, that people know about. If the very same operations were right then nobody would have known that there even was an operation there." Speaking about the day in 1997 when he received an order from the Israeli government to break his cover in Jordan, he says he "felt strange." The attempt on Mashaal's life enraged Jordan's late King Hussein, who threatened to hang the captured Israeli would-be assassins unless Israel complied. "There was a contact between Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister then and now again, the head of Mossad -- Danny Yatom and King Hussein. They told him that the two people that his men are holding are our operatives and that Mashaal is going to die and he told them that if Mashaal dies he will execute them. So a deal was struck," Ben-David said. "When I handed over the antidote I felt strange, I did not feel scared but it is very strange for an agent that is not under his own identity to be told -- 'okay, go now to the lobby of your hotel and meet Captain Firas, from the Jordanian intelligence and hand over to him the antidote' -- which means that you expose yourself to your enemy," he added. Ben-David is quick to say that he does not regret his decision to join the Mossad over two decades ago as he was in the final stages of completing his PhD in Hebrew Literature at university. Having left the agency over 13 years ago, he says he misses the thrill of being an agent and carrying out operations across Europe and parts of the Middle East, but adds he had reached a stage in his life where he wanted to return to literature. Ben-David, who has three children, says he missed out on watching his daughter grow up and did not wish to be absent as his two younger sons reached maturity. Asked if he was worried about how former colleagues would receive his spy thrillers, Ben-David admits that the Israeli government approves the content of the novel before it is sent off for publishing. "Informally the heads of Mossad never approve one of their people writing about Mossad. But my colleagues in the Mossad and the rank and file of the Mossad always write to me about how much they love the book and how much they can show their friends and then their wives, etc., and say, 'Look I couldn't tell you anything, but read this book. This is very similar to what I have done. This is very similar to what I have experienced.' So, by and large, they like it very much," he said.
