Ottoman Dominion

by Terry Brennan

“And it can wait, Brian. My father’s had about three hours of decent sleep in the last week. You see him as America’s ambassador. I see him as an aging father whose stamina is depleted, who has been terrorized and attacked and is wilting right in front of my eyes. It was only three years ago he had his heart bypass. He needs his rest if he’s going to … well … if he’s going to finish this fight.”

  Finish this fight. Mullaney could see that’s what it would take—a fight—to get past this adamant sentinel. He didn’t have the time.

  He stepped back, relieving the pressure on his chest. “When your father awakes, please tell him I need to speak to him as soon as possible. Rabbi Herzog, Levinson, and I are on our way to the St. Archangel Michael Monastery in the old city to meet with this monk/hacker guy. I don’t know how long this will take, but please ask your father to call me as soon as he possibly can.” Mullaney did not take well to being outranked. “Okay?”

  Mullaney threw himself into the passenger seat of Meyer Levinson’s waiting car.

  “What makes you so cheerful this morning?”

  He was about to respond when his thoughts were speared by a thunderous rutting from the back seat. Mullaney looked over his shoulder. Rabbi Mordechai Herzog was sprawled over the back seat, his black hat over his face, his jacket askew, one leg hanging off the edge of the seat.

  “Did he sleep in your car?”

  Levinson glanced back. “Looks like it, but no. I pulled him out of a guest room on the lower level about ten minutes ago. Last night, he insisted he wanted to be part of the conversation this morning … didn’t want you meeting with Poppy without him. So he sleepwalked to the car and immediately collapsed on the back seat. He was snoring before he hit the seat. I threw the hat over his face, but it didn’t help at all.”

  The colonel turned back to Mullaney. “You don’t look very well rested either. And something is eating at you. What’s up?”

  “Forget it,” groused Mullaney. “Let’s go see this monk. I’m sure we’ll all get a lot out of …”

  “I’m just dropping you off,” interrupted Levinson. “I do have other work demands, you know. The State of Israel is paying for my services. I need to show my face at headquarters at least once in a while.”

  “Then why are you here?” asked Mullaney. “One of my guys could have given us a ride.”

  Levinson put the car in gear and eased out of the circular driveway. “Because there are a couple of things I wanted to talk to you about this morning, and Father Poppy is one of them.”

  “He does not have the bag with him.”

  The commander, in place for only a few days since his father’s death, could see the obvious. Mullaney was leaving the residence without the leather bag that he was confident contained the box of power, the box so anxiously coveted by his master. But so coveted by himself as well—as much as he coveted the death of Brian Mullaney … preferably under the blade of his knife.

  “No … we cannot reach the box while it remains held inside that building,” said the commander. “But we can reach the Irishman. And I pray that we do. Follow them.”

  Knesset Building, Jerusalem

  July 23, 7:55 a.m.

  The Joseph Klarwein–designed Knesset Building was a modern architectural marvel, all stark lines, hard clean surfaces, soaring spaces, and solid stone floors. Even the three colorful Marc Chagall tapestries that adorned the Knesset’s entry corridor were hung on a stark, white wall with no embellishments. The seat of Israel’s government, both inside and out, was as austere and wrenching as the nation’s topography.

  Israel was a stark land. There was little comfort for her or in her. She existed in the midst of a desert, surrounded by enemies on all sides, a fortress state trying desperately to survive. And that desperation was fervently displayed in both her government’s architecture and her government’s structure.

  Thirty-four political parties were included on the ballot in Israel’s most recent election. The different parties represented ultra-conservative Hassidic Jews and religion-averse secular Jews who never stepped into a synagogue; they represented far left socialists, far right military adventurists, middle-of-the-road pragmatists, and desert-hugging environmentalists. One party stood for Palestinian rights, and another party clamored to annex more land on the disputed West Bank.

  Not one of those parties came close to winning a majority of the 120 seats in the Knesset. In the nation’s entire history, no party had ever won a majority of Knesset seats in a national election. So in order to build a functioning government, the party that won the most seats in the election needed to entice other parties, enough allies for the moment, to create a majority coalition that could govern the country.

  Which is why an Israeli government at any one time could be composed of parties at the opposite ends of the political spectrum, and every shade in between, as long as pragmatism ruled the day—everybody got a little bit of what they wanted.

  David Meir had built just such a coalition when he was first elected. And it had worked well, effectively, giving Israel a period of stable leadership. Until the covenant. Ishmael changed everything—again.

  As far as Israel’s political parties were concerned, the Ishmael Covenant contained something for everyone to despise. Everybody would get a little bit of what they hated.

  There was no comfort for Prime Minister David Meir from the building as he strode down the wide hall to the Knesset chamber. Nothing soft, warm, and inviting. No place to sit in comfort for a few minutes before …

  He was going to kill the Ishmael Covenant today.

  Knowing full well that he didn’t have the votes necessary to get the covenant ratified, Meir still intended to force the Knesset into scheduling a vote on the proposed peace treaty with Israel’s Arab neighbors. Meir’s coalition government, already in tatters, would crumble under the pressure of that vote, and his allies would evaporate. The covenant was a document that Meir had signed as Israel’s prime minister. When the Knesset rejected the covenant, it would also be rejecting Meir’s leadership and his government. A no-confidence vote would follow in short order, and a new election would be called.

  David Meir’s political career would come to an ignominious end.

  So be it. After Vigdor Limon’s revelation last night of King Abdullah’s duplicity, confirming doubts that Meir would only voice to himself, the prime minister was determined not to allow Israel to enter into a bogus treaty that would bolster its enemies and increase the risk of his nation’s demise. The sons of Ishmael remained unwavering in their resolve to destroy the Jewish homeland. Meir was committed to their failure. And the only way to ensure it was to sacrifice himself.

  He would throw the Ishmael Covenant at the Knesset today, and at some point in the very near future, the Knesset would trample on and denounce the proposed treaty. He would lose his government, his place in leading the nation he so loved. But Israel would survive once more. Israel must survive.

  The covenant never had …

  Well, yes. There had been a chance. King Abdullah could have been honest and trustworthy. Israeli politicians could have become statesmen, put aside some of their less critical differences, and worked together to give Israel peace for the first time in its existence. But Abdullah was a liar, and Israel was a stark land, full of stark, stiff-necked people.

  “The covenant never really had a chance.” Benjamin Erdad walked alongside the prime minister. Israel’s minister of internal security, one of Meir’s staunchest allies, Erdad had been there the day Saudi Prince Faisal first proposed the covenant, a peace treaty between Israel and its Arab neighbors—Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and the other Persian Gulf oligarchy’s—along with a mutual-defense pact that would erect a nearly impenetrable barrier both to the fanatics of ISIS and the fanatics in Tehran. It was a stunning attempt at peace. But it was a promise built on sand.

  Today that promise would collapse.

  “Ah,” said Meir, his eyes on the looming do
ors to the Knesset chamber, “but what if we could have made the impossible a reality, eh?” He turned to Erdad. “I would do almost anything to ensure peace for my children … all our children. Even attempt the impossible.”

  Meir stopped in front of the closed doors and turned to his friend. He held out his hand.

  “Thank you, Benjamin. You have been faithful when so many have fled from my side.” Erdad’s big hand swallowed Meir’s more cultured fingers. “Perhaps history will be kinder to us than our so-called allies.” He looked into Erdad’s sad eyes. “It was worth the effort, Benji. It was worth the effort.”

  David Meir released Erdad’s hand and turned toward the doors. “Open them, please.”

  20

  Ambassador’s Residence, Tel Aviv

  July 23, 8:15 a.m.

  Cleveland made this call from his private quarters in the residence. And he made the call on one of the many disposable mobile phones he secretly kept in stock during all of his ambassadorial assignments. Sometimes it was just necessary to talk to someone without the whole world listening in.

  “Hello, Ernie, it’s Cleveland. Sorry to call you without a caller ID, but I wanted this discussion as private as possible. Are your men ready?”

  “The Task Force is on standby readiness, waitin’ for orders. We can move whenever we get the green light,” said Edwards. “But since I’m talkin’ to you and not my boss, my gut tells me those orders have yet to be written.”

  “I’m working on that,” said Cleveland. “There are two—”

  “Hold on, Atticus … I need you to listen to me closely.”

  The command in Colonel Earnest Edwards’s voice seized Cleveland’s attention.

  “For the last hour, I’ve had my guys war-gamin’ your scenario. I haven’t told them squat about your suspicions, but they are a pretty sharp bunch. They figured it out pretty quick. But here’s the thing. Our teams believe the only way to pull off a theft of nuclear weapons from Incirlik is through the use of chemical or biological weapons, and biological weapons will take too long. That base is huge … over three thousand acres. If you’ve got what must be a smaller force, not as well armed, attackin’ a fixed, heavily fortified position … with airpower at its back … you could never expect to overcome the forces currently on duty at Incirlik by conventional means. The attackers would need to take out a whole swarm of people and take them out quickly and effectively. Release a chemical weapon like sarin gas in the right locations, and Incirlik would be undefended within minutes. Do you hear me?”

  Cleveland’s worst dreams were coming to reality. “That would be a nightmare. How many people are stationed at Incirlik?”

  “Includin’ dependents—that’s wives and kiddies—and civilians, there’s nearly five thousand humans servin’ or livin’ on that base,” said Edwards. “You want me to make it worse for you? The base is smack-dab in the middle of an urban area—Adana, Turkey. There are one-point-seven million people within a six-mile radius of the base. There would be a whole lot of hurt goin’ on if some fool released chemical weapons on that base. But …”

  His head came off his chest. “But what?” asked Cleveland.

  “This one I don’t understand,” said Edwards. “Adana sits in the middle of a coastal plain just north of the upper finger of the Mediterranean Sea. It is surrounded on its other three sides by a horseshoe curve of the Taurus Mountains whose peaks are between ten and twelve thousand feet high. That city is better protected from weather than almost any other place on earth. And … you know what? There’s a windstorm ragin’ over that plain right now. It’s been blowin’ at near gale force for the last few days. And it’s projected to keep blowin’ like that for quite a while.”

  “That’s good?”

  “That’s perfect, my friend. Only a madman would release chemical weapons in that kind of wind. First of all, they would blow out of the base so fast they would have only negligible effect. Second … Well, who cares a rip about second? The weapons just wouldn’t work. So what I’m tellin’ you, Atticus, is that a part of the world that never … ever … has a wind problem, has been throttled by gale force winds for nearly a week. I think I’m lookin’ at divine intervention here. But …”

  Oh, no. “But what?”

  “But somebody would still need to go in and find those bad guys and their nasty weapons and neutralize both the weapons and the thugs who have them in hand. Otherwise we could still face a bloodbath. I would like that somebody to be us. So what else can you tell me?”

  Here it was. The moment of truth. Either jump in or leave the field of play.

  “Ernie, I hope to be on the ground in Cyprus—at Akrotiri—in about ninety minutes. There are some things you need to know that I’d rather share with you personally. And, if … when … your orders come through … well … I want to be close by … just in case.”

  There was another of those long, pregnant pauses on the other end of the transmission.

  “Atticus, you’re tap dancin’ in a snake pit—slow down and you’ll find fangs in your Florsheim’s. I can read your situation between the lines,” said Edwards, “but this you’ve got to know. I’m not goin’ anywhere until I get a green light from DOD. So if you want to come visit, I can’t stop you. Let me know when you are wheels-up and I’ll be lookin’ for you at this end.”

  St. Archangel Michael Monastery, Tel Aviv

  July 23, 8:21 a.m.

  From the street, Mullaney and Herzog walked down a long pathway between high, Jerusalem stone walls, mostly open to the sky, that ran along the north side of the monastery to the main entrance. The last third of the corridor passed under a deep, vaulted alcove that once again opened to the sky as they reached the striking blue wooden door with a large, white cross on its face, giving access to the building. A Greek Orthodox monastery, St. Archangel Michael’s—overlooking the brilliant blue water of the Mediterranean Sea and the seawall of the old port of Jaffa, now Tel Aviv—was built on the ruins of a Crusader castle in 1894 and almost completely rebuilt after a devastating fire in 1994. Its stone facade and clock tower remained landmarks in Old Tel Aviv.

  Crossing the round, stone rotunda at the entryway to St. Archangel Michael Monastery, a grave look upon his face, Father Stephanakis Poppodopolous walked purposefully straight to Rabbi Herzog.

  “Mordechai,” he said, removing his hands from his sleeves and grasping Herzog’s, “it’s such a tragedy about your son and all his colleagues—please, my heart grieves his loss and your pain. The monks have been praying for you since we first received word of the explosion. I am so sorry, my friend.”

  “Thank you, Poppy,” said Herzog.

  Father Poppodopolous was large, round, and covered from his shoulders to his feet by a long, black cassock, its center cinched with a thick hemp rope over the monk’s considerable girth. He had an elaborately embroidered black skullcap on his head, covering only a small portion of the long, wavy black locks that were now streaked heavily with silver threads. Though his jowls gave him a succession of chins and his cheeks emulated a chipmunk’s—full of acorns—the most striking and memorable facet of his appearance was a pair of piercing, aquamarine eyes that looked like South Sea lagoons—translucent pale green at the surface but deeper, darker blue at the depths. Their color was magnified by small, round, rimless glasses precariously perched on the end of his nose.

  “Your prayers are always much appreciated. You have been a good friend to both my son and I, and to all our people.” Herzog turned to his right. “Poppy, this is Agent Mullaney, the man I spoke to you about.”

  Father Poppy’s hands were as big as a catcher’s mitt, and Mullaney’s got lost amidst its folds. A smile crossed the monk’s face. “Ah, the man with the secret code. You are a welcome respite from the daily orders of the monastery,” he said, his eyes lit with a lively intelligence and mischievous glitter—much like Herzog’s himself. “Let’s go to my little corner of the monastery where we can speak more privately.”

  At a surpris
ingly brisk pace, Father Poppodopolous led the way past the entrance to the church sanctuary, bright with pink marble columns running down each side of the nave, through a low-ceilinged stone passageway, into a warren of corridors, around bends and down stairs that left Mullaney disoriented. The monk slowed at a massive, ancient wooden door from which hung a huge, rusted padlock that could have been used by the Crusaders. Wielding a giant key, Father Poppodopolous unhinged the lock and burst through the door.

  Mullaney was expecting a small, narrow monk’s cell with a wooden bed, thin mattress, and one chair. What he found messed with his mind.

  The room was wide and deep, brilliantly white, sunshine pouring in from a line of windows along the high ceiling. But arrayed under the windows was a large, horseshoe-shaped desk, upon which rested half-a-dozen jumbo computer monitors. In the concave center of the horseshoe’s inner arc was a mammoth, deeply padded swivel chair with huge side arms that appeared to integrate some sort of controllers at their flat ends. To the left was an arched alcove that contained a bed big enough to accommodate the monk’s considerable size, to the right a modest round table with a banker’s lamp in the middle, four chairs arranged around its circumference.

  Father Poppodopolous led them to the table, switched on the light, and pointed to the chairs with a sweep of his arm. “Let’s have a chat,” he said. “What have you brought me?”

  21

  Ambassador’s Residence, Tel Aviv

  July 23, 8:24 a.m.

  “Why do you have to go?” Ruth Hughes paced across the small expanse of his temporary office. “What can you do there that you can’t do here?”

  Cleveland nodded. Good questions.

  “First, Kashani is not a madman,” Cleveland responded. “Does he have a penchant for stirring up and submitting to the fundamentalist factions in his country? Yes. But in my two years as ambassador to Turkey, Kashani also proved to be candid, as honest as any president could be, and generally a man of his word. We were able to find common ground and strong respect for each other despite our differences. The Kashani I know would never authorize an attack on a NATO facility to abscond with nuclear weapons. If there is collusion in his government or his military, and if I can talk to him without Eroglu or others in the way, I think he’ll listen to me.