“The last time I called,” a voice said, “I told you where Saeedi Bashar and his daughter were hiding in Paris. I did you a favor.”
“Yes, General Kardar, and I deeply appreciated it. Unfortunately, Bashar escaped.”
“The French are inept. It is their nature. The reason I helped you was to show that my government was not involved in the attempt to murder you at your niece’s wedding.”
Big Jules noticed Dagan shaking his head as he listened through headphones to their conversation; a clear sign his deputy thought Kardar was lying.
“Do you know where the Roc is currently hiding?” Big Jules asked.
“No. I knew about the Paris flat only because an Iranian expat living in Italy befriended Bashar’s daughter, and now she and the expat both are dead.”
For a moment, Big Jules considered confronting Kardar about his trip to London. Interrogating him about his meeting with Zharkov. Demanding to know if he had sent the Roc to murder Zharkov. Accusing him of selling an Iranian-made bomb to Zharkov. But he decided against it. The evidence was still too speculative, at this stage. Kardar was not the type to blurt out a confession or honestly acknowledge his role. Better to remain silent and play along. Kardar had requested this telephone call for a reason, and before Big Jules showed his cards, he wanted to know what Kardar was after.
“You sent word that today’s call was most urgent,” Big Jules said.
“I need a favor. The CIA director—Connor Whittington—I want to meet privately with him. My government does not wish to use diplomatic channels or ask our Arab brothers to serve as intermediaries. Will you arrange this?”
“The Americans will not agree to a meeting unless they know the subjects to be discussed.”
“We are being falsely accused because of Fathi Aziz and his threat. Already members of the US Congress are accusing us of supplying the Jihad Brigade with a nuclear bomb, which is false.”
“If you are not involved, then you have nothing to fear.”
“Director Levi, I am not naive. Tehran is well aware of how the Americans accused Saddam of having WMDs when he had none. There are many in Washington who want to attack us, even though we are a peaceful people.”
“The schematics of the nuclear bomb Aziz showed in his internet video are from Iranian plans,” Big Jules said, tweaking him.
“Drawings do not make a bomb. We did not give them to him.”
Again, Big Jules watched Dagan shake his head.
“Iran does not have the capability to build a nuclear bomb, despite what you might believe,” Kardar continued. “Western inspectors have found no credible evidence. You and the Americans would attack us if we built a nuclear weapon, and the result would be a third world war. We have strong allies in China and Russia. You know where China gets its oil. No one wants a third world war. Now are you willing to arrange a meeting?”
“I will contact the Americans for you, but in return, tell me where Aziz is hiding.”
“How would I know this?”
“Now you think I am the naive one.”
“I will await our next call about Whittington,” Kardar said. “For all of our countries.” The line went dead.
Big Jules looked at Dagan. “Your thoughts?”
“Where is there truth in the mouth of a liar?”
Big Jules sat quietly for several moments, thinking. An odd smile appeared on his lips.
“What is it?” Dagan asked.
“I believe I understand General Kardar’s game. It is like a puzzle that confounds you until you solve it, and then you wonder how you missed such an obvious solution.”
Dagan didn’t interrupt.
“Let me tell you a story,” Big Jules said. “My brother, Ari, whom you have met, worked in Ktzi’ot Prison, where strong men always preyed on weak ones. One day a prisoner shoved a weaker prisoner down a flight of stairs. Threatened to kill him unless he paid him protection money. The terrified prisoner ran to the guards and reported the incident. The two of them were put into solitary confinement and punished.”
Big Jules paused, savoring his story. Dagan knew better than to hurry him.
“There was another prisoner,” Big Jules continued. “Another predator who extorted weaker men. He did not push his targets down stairs; he befriended them. One day the weaker prisoner was badly beaten. When his stronger friend appeared, the beaten inmate said, ‘If only you had been there, they would never have attacked me.’ The stronger prisoner agreed, ‘It’s true, and you are my friend, but I cannot protect you without putting myself in danger.’ The weaker man said, ‘I will pay you.’”
Big Jules looked at Dagan.
“I understand,” Dagan said. “The stronger prisoner had arranged the beating of his weaker friend.”
“Yes, that is exactly what happened. But what could the weaker man do but pay—even if he suspected his friend had betrayed him? I suspect General Kardar intends to offer the Americans his help. He will offer to betray Aziz, as proof that Iran played no role in any of this, but he will ask the Americans for a price—to resolve a problem that he created.”
“Will the Americans take his bait?”
“Do they have a choice? ‘In a wilderness of mirrors. What will the spider do.’” It was a line from the poem “Gerontion,” by T. S. Eliot.
Thirty-Seven
“The Great Satan and the Zionists refuse to submit to the will of Allah, blessed be his holy name,” an angry Fathi Aziz declared in a new internet video. “Two days have passed, and Palestine has not been returned to its people. The prophet Moses called down ten plagues on the Egyptians, the last that every firstborn son in Egypt would be slaughtered. Do you Americans and Zionists believe you are better than those disobedient Egyptians? Allah will punish you with blood.”
Less than an hour after Aziz’s diatribe, a young man resting on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the largest art museum in the country, looked up from the Holy Qur’an he was reading. He had been waiting outside the third-most-visited site in Manhattan for two hours. Occasionally he would watch the men, women, and children climbing and descending the steps of the grand Beaux Arts museum. He did not speak to them but returned to his scriptures. It wasn’t until he noticed a school bus approaching along Fifth Avenue that he closed his book and placed it next to him while he slipped the heavy backpack that he had brought over his shoulders. The bus parked directly in front of the Met, and when its door swung open, a swarm of students from the only conservative Jewish school in the city began exiting onto the sidewalk.
The young man rose from the stoop and waited until all fifty of the bus riders had gathered on the sidewalk, with two of their teachers riding herd. When they obediently fell into line two abreast and started up the steps, the man walked toward them.
“Hey!” he heard someone call behind him. “Your book?”
He turned his head slightly and saw the Qur’an that he’d left on the steps now being waved in the air by an older man. He looked back at the sixth-grade class of fresh-faced, energetic boys and girls. They were close enough.
“Allahu akbar!”
He squeezed the trigger. His backpack exploded instantly, killing him and those closest to him, including the man clutching the Qur’an. Forty dead, as well as twenty-six Jewish students. More than a hundred outside the Met wounded. When the police searched the room he had rented in Paterson, New Jersey—known as “Little Palestine” because it was home to the largest Palestinian community in America—they discovered he had illegally crossed into the United States over the Canadian border, having flown there from Jordan. He was a member of the Jihad Brigade.
President Fitzgerald was fuming when CIA Director Whittington arrived at the Oval Office.
“Dead Jewish children on the steps of the Met!” the president declared. “We’ve got to find and kill Aziz. This attack has given credibility to his nuclear threat. People are afraid. Panicked. Didn’t you see the protestors marching outside? I’ve got members
of Congress calling for us to pressure Israel into pulling out of Palestine, or at least make a statement saying they’re considering it.”
“I just spoke to Director Levi,” Whittington said. “He called to tell me that General Firouz Kardar, who oversees the Iranian Quds Force, has asked for a face-to-face. He believes this general may have information about Aziz’s whereabouts.”
“The Iranians are offering to help us stop Aziz?” Fitzgerald said, clearly surprised.
“Levi warned it could be some type of trick. He also told me his people now have proof there is a submarine.”
“What? You told me there was no way Aziz could get his hands on one.”
“Director Levi said a Russian oligarch in London may have purchased one for Aziz. A scrapped Soviet Romeo-class submarine that was reconditioned in the Black Sea.”
“An oligarch? Who the hell is he? Why’s he helping Aziz?”
“His name is Taras Zharkov, and Director Levi believes Zharkov was hoping to earn huge profits by crashing our economy.”
“Are you telling me the Kremlin is involved in this?”
“No, sir. Director Levi doesn’t believe so. Only Zharkov.”
“Where is this son of a bitch? Has he been arrested?”
“Zharkov was murdered three days ago in London, although his death hasn’t been made public.”
“Did the Mossad kill him?”
“Director Levi suspects General Kardar ordered the killing. There are photos of him meeting with the Russian the night before he was murdered.”
“The same general who wants to meet with you now?”
“It shouldn’t be any surprise, Mr. President, that the Israelis are claiming the Iranians are up to their necks in all of this. That’s been Director Levi’s position from the start. Ever since we became aware of Nasya Radi’s letter warning us.”
“A letter you didn’t take seriously. Tell me something. Why is the director of the Mossad on top of this, and you and your people aren’t?” Fitzgerald didn’t wait for an answer. “I should fire you. Up until you walked into my office five minutes ago, you were assuring me this entire submarine/nuclear bomb threat was improbable. That this Aziz crackpot was a delusional, penniless religious zealot.”
“With all due respect, Mr. President, we still don’t know how much of this is conjecture. We haven’t been able to confirm any of it, and we certainly can’t accuse Tehran without irrefutable proof. A wild accusation could cripple any attempts to constructively negotiate with the Iranians in the future, and weaken support from our allies. This still could be a hoax.”
“A hoax? For God’s sake, man, Aziz posted a photo of a nuclear bomb on the internet, along with schematics explaining how it was made. The Mossad has told you a dead Russian in London secured a submarine for Aziz, and that crazy bastard has blown up a school bus load of Jewish children because he doesn’t believe we’re taking him seriously!”
“Sir, we have been doing our due diligence, using every technical advantage that we have to confirm this, and there are still many unanswered questions. You hired me to rein in the agency—to be skeptical, a calm voice of reason. And that is what I am trying to be. Having said that, I will submit my resignation today, if that is what you want.”
“What I want is for you to forget about your predictive analytics and deal with this general face-to-face before it’s too late and I have the blood of thousands of dead Americans on my hands. Where does this Iranian general want to meet you?”
“A private residence in Azerbaijan. Someone he apparently trusts.”
“Is Levi going to be there?”
“The Mossad wasn’t invited, but I’m certain Levi will have his people watching.”
Fitzgerald stood up, still visibly angry. “When you meet with this Iranian, you tell him that if we find even the slightest bit of evidence that Iran manufactured a nuclear bomb and sold it to this Russian or Aziz or anyone else, we will hold Tehran responsible. I’m meeting with my national security team today, and we are proceeding as if this threat is a hundred percent legitimate. You need to get on board and do the same. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Mr. President. If I may, we haven’t been sitting on our hands. We have been coordinating our efforts with the Pentagon. The Navy has made a grid. Every mile of water off our eastern shoreline is being searched section by section, and all ports have been ordered to check every cargo container. Basically, we’re shutting them down until after the six-day deadline passes. Nothing is going to get through.”
“Nothing better.”
“There’s something else I need to tell you, Mr. President, based on my conversation with Director Levi. He said one of his Mossad officers, along with Valerie Mayberry and Brett Garrett, managed to enter Zharkov’s London mansion and look at maps in his office.”
“You said they were in London chasing a suspected murderer. What the hell do they have to do with any of this?”
“We’ll know soon enough, sir. They’re on a flight from Tel Aviv back to Dulles. I have a team waiting to pick them up.”
Thirty-Eight
The concrete border wall entombing the West Bank was as high as any found at a maximum-security penitentiary. Esther studied the faces of the Palestinian laborers as they emerged from Checkpoint 300 in the early-morning darkness and boarded buses for Bethlehem work sites. The Mossad officer next to her in the Range Rover’s front passenger seat lit a cigarette and blew out a smoke ring.
“Roll down your window,” she complained. “I’m not dying from your secondhand smoke.”
He blew another perfectly shaped ring into the already cloudy windshield and reluctantly lowered his side window. Esther could feel the hot morning air coming inside.
“You should get out to smoke,” she said.
He took another long drag and flicked his cigarette out onto the rutted pavement. “You owe me,” he said.
“You owe me for saving you from lung cancer.”
He chuckled. “A Palestinian bullet will kill me first.”
The two officers in the SUV’s rear seat laughed. “You two sound like you’re married,” one said.
“Him?” Esther said. “A goat would be a better husband.”
“But a goat couldn’t give you this.” He grabbed his crotch.
Esther ignored the insult. “The one in the Nike baseball hat—that’s Omar Seif.”
All four hurried toward a bus that Palestinian workers were boarding. Omar Seif was waiting to board, third in line. He saw them, and the Palestinians on either side of him stepped away.
Two Mossad agents grabbed Seif’s arms, spun him around, and pushed his face against the side of the bus, expertly binding his wrists with plastic cuffs while a third officer frisked him after knocking a plastic bag that contained his lunch onto the pavement. Esther tugged a black hood over Seif’s head. No one offered an explanation. They led him to the Range Rover and pushed him into its rear seat. Esther looked back as they were leaving. The line had reformed. What had happened was a common occurrence. A worker scooped up Seif’s lunch for himself while the line of workers continued boarding.
Seif was forced into a chair in an interrogation room a few miles away. Esther removed his hood. He turned to the left, then right, inspecting his surroundings. Nothing except a chair facing his.
Esther sat down across from him. “Your name is Omar Seif.”
He nodded.
“Speak when you are asked a question!”
“Yes,” he mumbled.
“You are twenty-four years old. Your parents are Leyal and Yousef. You have three brothers and two sisters, is this correct?”
“Yes.”
His hands were still bound behind his back, forcing him to lean forward uncomfortably. His right leg bounced up and down.
“You are a cement laborer at the new Arabian Nights hotel construction site.”
“Yes.”
“You are a member of the Jihad Brigade?”
A surprised look washed over h
is hollow face. “No! No! That’s wrong! I’m not a radical.”
“You’re lying!” Esther motioned to one of her colleagues, who immediately left the room. When he returned, he was pushing a stainless-steel cart. He positioned it near Seif so the prisoner would recognize what was on its tray: surgical instruments and a cloth stained with blood.
Esther picked up a scalpel. Leaned close to his face.
“You are a member of the Jihad Brigade,” she said slowly, making it a definitive statement.
“No, someone has lied to you.”
She placed the tip of the blade in front of his left eyeball.
“Do you know what happens to Palestinian terrorists? We blind them before they are imprisoned and executed.”
Rapid breathing. His entire body trembled, his eyes locked on the scalpel.
Esther pushed the blade closer to his eyeball.
“I believe you,” she said. “You do not belong to the Jihad Brigade, but your cousin Khalid does, and that makes you as guilty as him. You know he’s a member, don’t you?”
Seif seemed paralyzed.
“Don’t you!” she yelled.
“Yes, he is, but not me.”
Esther lowered the scalpel. Placed it on the tray. Seif dropped his head, stared at the concrete floor.
“This is your cousin Khalid,” she said, holding up a photo for him to see.
He examined it. Two Arab men. An outdoor market in Gaza.
“Who is with Khalid? If you lie, I will blind you.”
He raised his chin. Stared at her face.
“Ibrahim,” he mumbled.
“Yes, Ibrahim Antar,” she said. “I was testing you. Answer my questions, and you will be released. We will arrange for you to get a full day of pay. We’ll give you a new lunch.”
She smiled at him and then, in a lightning-fast move, dropped the photo and snatched up the scalpel. “Lie, and I will cut out both your eyes. Do not test me.”
He nodded.
She waved her hand, and a colleague came forward with a new photograph to show him.
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