Cyprus PIER FOUR OF Limassol port was abuzz with activity. Flatbed trailers queued to take up position beneath one of the two huge hoists unloading forty-foot containers from the deck of the recently arrived Gibraltar-registered vessel. She’d been late docking because of bad weather near Rhodes and was due out again that same evening, heading back for Piraeus. The ship’s crew were in a hurry to get the job done, as were the dock workers, truck drivers and customs men. The container from Ilychevsk that was bound for Haifa and whose administrative document described its contents as defective fruit and vegetable juices was scheduled to break its journey here in Limassol for a couple of days, until another ship arrived to take it on the last part of its circuitous route back to Israel. The container’s papers had been processed without comment in the port office. Rather than pay for storage on one of the port’s huge quays, the shipping agent handling the cargo had gone for a cheaper option, moving it to a bonded yard on the edge of Limassol town.
