The Jerusalem Assassin

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The Jerusalem Assassin Page 14

by Joel C. Rosenberg


  Roseboro seized the brief moment of détente to thank the Grand Mufti for his hospitality and end the meeting.

  Smart move, thought Kailea. Roseboro wasn’t just good at protection; he had over his years in the Secret Service become an effective diplomat as well. Still, the problem remained. What were they going to do about Ryker? Their mission here was already sensitive enough. Why was this guy so seemingly intent on making it that much harder?

  42

  DENVER, COLORADO—24 NOVEMBER

  United flight 1889 touched down just after 10 a.m. Mountain time.

  Marcus had checked no bags, so after clearing passport control, he immediately caught a shuttle bus to pick up his rental car. By 11:45, he was in a brand-new black Corvette, racing west on I-70 under gray skies and a light snowfall.

  As he headed further into the mountains, the skies grew darker and the snow fell harder. Marcus cranked up the heater and the windshield wipers full blast. His GPS system pegged the entire trip at four hours and ten minutes. But in this weather, he knew he’d be lucky to make it in six. He found himself remembering a sign from his childhood, one that used to welcome travelers arriving at DIA. Welcome to Denver, it read. A change of altitude, a change of attitude. The sign was long gone. Unfortunately, so was the feeling.

  He should have loved being back in the U.S., back in the state where he’d been born and raised, where he’d come of age and fallen in love. But the murder of so many Americans in so short a time—first the church shooting, now the D.C. bombing—weighed heavy on him. So did the fear that something worse was coming. And even though he longed to see his family, it seemed somehow wrong to be going home for Thanksgiving when his colleagues were still in harm’s way, not knowing what the next minute held.

  Determined to drown out such worries, he turned on the car radio to find some good tunes. That proved a mistake. The dial was set to KOA NewsRadio 850 AM out of Denver, and before he could change it, their noon broadcast opened with breaking news out of Ramallah. Palestinian Authority Chairman Ismail Ziad had just held a press conference blasting President Clarke’s peace plan as “an abomination” that “shows no respect whatsoever for the Palestinian people, our dreams, our aspirations, or our quest for justice.” In remarks translated into English, Ziad called the plan the “mother of all disappointments.” He said his cabinet had just voted unanimously to reject the White House’s invitation to attend a peace summit in January at Camp David—an event that hadn’t even been made public yet—and called on every member of the Arab League to “condemn the American plan as a naked attempt to institutionalize the racist, apartheid nature of the Zionist regime, its illegal and unjust occupation of the Palestinian lands, and its unmitigated cruelty toward the Palestinian people.”

  “No reaction yet from the White House or State Department,” the news anchor noted. Then she added, “National Security Advisor Barry Evans is currently en route from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia—where he just briefed the king and crown prince on the plan—to Cairo, the capital of Egypt.”

  When the anchor switched to a story about the search for a new head coach for the Colorado Rockies, Marcus turned it off, trying to process what he’d just heard. He called Pete Hwang back in Washington but got voice mail. He tried Kailea but didn’t get her either. He even tried to call Bill McDermott, both on his direct line and his mobile phone, but to no avail.

  It was then that he realized he didn’t have anyone else to call. Senator Dayton’s perspective would be interesting. Few Democrats knew the Middle East better, and he’d read in the papers on his flight back to the States that the senator and his top aide, Annie Stewart, were fresh back from the Gulf. But Marcus was hesitant to call the ranking minority member of the Senate Intelligence Committee just to chitchat.

  His thoughts shifted to Jenny Morris. The CIA’s station chief in the Russian capital was smart. Experienced. Feisty. Opinionated. But serious. Focused. Willing to listen. And willing to act. She’d been a handful in Moscow. They’d gotten in some rip-roaring fights. But he liked her moxie. She’d become a real ally. And they’d have never gotten out of Russia without her. The more he thought about it, the more tempted he was to call her. Then again, he’d been forbidden to have any contact whatsoever with her while she was still in Moscow and on the FSB’s watch list.

  The guy he really wanted to talk to, of course, was his closest friend from his first days in the Corps, even closer than Pete. But he couldn’t. Not now. Not ever. Nick Vinetti had been killed the month before. He’d been shot in the North Korean city of Tanch’ǒn, on a mission that Marcus had been on too, and Nick’s death had hit him harder than most. Not a day went by when Marcus didn’t think about his friend or wonder what would have happened if Nick had stayed home with his wife, Claire, like he should have.

  It was dark and his stomach was grumbling when he reached Glenwood Springs. He took exit 116 onto Highway 82 and stopped briefly at a diner where he had a burger, coffee, and a slice of pumpkin pie. Using his phone, he scanned the latest headlines on Twitter, focusing primarily on coverage of Ziad’s rejection of the peace plan. For the life of him, Marcus couldn’t understand why Ziad had rejected it so quickly and so viscerally. How exactly did blistering the American plan help the Palestinian cause?

  On second thought, however, there was a potential upside. Almost certainly now the president would not be going to Jerusalem. What would be the point? For this Marcus breathed a bit easier. The politics of the peace plan were not his responsibility, after all. Keeping the president and his senior diplomats safe was, and Chairman Ziad had just given this mission a huge gift.

  Marcus gassed up the Corvette and got back on the road. Another two hours passed before he reached the Aspen city limits, and twenty minutes more until he reached the A-frame house tucked away on an obscure little road, which to his relief had been freshly plowed. He hoped the guy was home. He hadn’t called. He hadn’t been exactly sure when he’d be arriving.

  As soon as he got out of the car, he caught a whiff of smoke pouring out of the chimney. He saw lights on in the front windows and wondered anew why he’d been summoned.

  43

  OUTSIDE OF ASPEN, COLORADO

  Oleg Kraskin looked stunned to see Marcus outside his door.

  “You came!” said the Russian, welcoming him with a giant bear hug.

  “I was in the neighborhood, so . . .”

  “I am so glad to see you alive and well.”

  “Likewise, but I can’t stay long. What’s so urgent it had to be in person?”

  “Come, sit down and I’ll show you.”

  The house looked like something Marcus had built with Lincoln Logs as a boy. It was small, just a living room, kitchen, and bathroom on the first floor, and a wooden ladder leading up to a loft that he guessed was Oleg’s bedroom. The living room had a stone hearth before a roaring fire that was giving off a great deal of heat. Marcus noticed no framed photographs on the walls, just a small one on the desk, next to three large computer monitors. In it, Oleg had his arm around his wife, Marina, who was holding their infant son, Vasily, at what appeared to be the boy’s baptism.

  Oleg noticed his friend staring at the photograph.

  “Simpler days,” the Russian said wistfully.

  Marcus nodded, and Oleg walked over to the desk, picked up a manila folder, and handed it to Marcus.

  “What’s this?” Marcus asked.

  “Your answer.”

  Marcus opened the folder and glanced through sixteen pages of what appeared to be intercepted phone and email transcripts, all in Russian and Arabic.

  “What exactly am I looking at here?” he asked.

  “Ah, sorry, I gave you the wrong one.” Oleg took the folder back, grabbed another one off his desk, and handed that to Marcus. This one contained the same pages, stapled to sixteen additional pages of English translations.

  “The Russians are funding some kind of new terrorist organization,” Oleg said as a kettle on the stove whistled and he b
egan making chai.

  “The Russians?”

  “Da.”

  “Not the Iranians?”

  “That, I can’t say. I’m not hacking into the Iranians’ computer, only those of my old friends and colleagues in the Kremlin.”

  “When did you finally break in?”

  “Just before I called you.”

  “With the help of the NSA?”

  “Of course.”

  “So who exactly have you hacked?”

  “Two people so far,” Oleg said. “The first is Petrovsky’s personal secretary. Her name is Batya. She sits right outside his door. She worked for him at the Defense Ministry. I used to talk to her all the time.”

  “And the second?”

  “A colonel. His name is Yvgenny. He was Petrovsky’s military secretary over at Defense. He’s basically doing the same job I did for Luganov.”

  “And you’re sure no one at the Kremlin can tell you’re inside their system?”

  “Your people at Fort Meade and Langley have been very helpful in that regard.”

  “Good—so what can you tell me?”

  “Well, as we’d both guessed, Petrovsky is fuming and looking for revenge. Kropatkin is warning him they have to be careful, that if there are any Russian fingerprints, it could lead them into war with the U.S. and NATO after all.”

  “Is Petrovsky listening?”

  “It seems that way—the very fact that they are covertly funding a new terrorist group suggests that they’re looking for deniability, a way to cover their tracks.”

  “Who’s leading the new group?”

  “I don’t know; they don’t say—not even with code words.”

  “Where is this new organization based?”

  “Greece, it would seem. I can’t figure out where exactly, but all the emails and phone calls emanate from or return to Greek area codes. And the group’s name is Greek—Kairos—it means ‘a time when conditions are right for the accomplishment of a crucial action.’ Wherever they are, they’re flush with cash—rubles, to be precise. The FSB has transferred at least twenty million into various accounts of theirs.”

  “Any chance they mention the specific banks and SWIFT codes?”

  “Afraid not.”

  “Are they behind the hit on Reed?”

  “I’m guessing so, but I haven’t found any specific kill orders. The initial messages go back at least two years, when Petrovsky was defense minister and Kropatkin was deputy director of the FSB. Those talk mostly of building infrastructure throughout Europe and the U.S.”

  “Infrastructure?” Marcus asked. “Meaning what?”

  “They don’t spell that out,” Oleg said. “Presumably they’re hiring operatives, renting safe houses, buying vehicles and phones and weapons, and the like. But at this point, I can’t say for sure.”

  Marcus sifted through the English translations, scanning them quickly. “This is good work, but you could have told me all this over the phone.”

  “Not this,” said Oleg, handing over a separate folder.

  He gave Marcus a moment to glance through another five pages of translated text messages between the Russian president and his spy chief but didn’t wait for the American to read it all cover to cover.

  “These are the conversations that have me really worried,” Oleg explained. “These come from the last few weeks. Some from the last few days. Kropatkin is trying to keep the Kremlin distanced from the new terror group—fund it, encourage it, but let them do their own thing—while Petrovsky is pushing for more active and direct involvement. Now turn to the last two pages.”

  Marcus did.

  “That is why I called you,” Oleg said, pointing at the pages in his friend’s hands. “Three days ago, Kropatkin tells his boss they are playing with fire if they get too close to Kairos. Then he tells Petrovsky that ‘the big one’ is coming soon, ‘by the end of the year,’ and he warns that the leaders appear to be ‘taking orders from someone.’”

  Marcus found the section Oleg was referring to and kept reading.

  Petrovsky: Who?

  Kropatkin: I don’t know, but it’s certainly not us.

  Petrovsky: How can you be sure?

  Kropatkin: Because I’m hearing talk of a kill list, and we’ve never given them such a list.

  Petrovsky: Who are the targets?

  Kropatkin: Apparently, there are nineteen. We don’t have all the names. But we do have two.

  Petrovsky: Who?

  Kropatkin: President Andrew Clarke and Prime Minister Reuven Eitan.

  44

  WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  “What do you mean he’s trashed my plan?”

  The president was beet red as he stared at the large plasma screen on the far wall of the Situation Room. On-screen was General Evans via a secure videoconference from the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. On a smaller, adjacent screen was the image of Susan Davis, also in Egypt.

  “Mr. President, what he’s saying publicly is that he’s furious that the plan doesn’t give him full and undisputed control of the Temple Mount, doesn’t give him sovereignty over the Muslim and Christian Quarters of the Old City, and doesn’t roll Israel back to the pre-1967 borders,” said Evans. “He also says he’s incensed the plan doesn’t give Palestinian refugees the right of return and that it gives the Israelis sovereignty over all but a handful of what he calls ‘illegal Jewish settlements’ on the West Bank.”

  Deputy National Security Advisor Bill McDermott looked around the room. Clarke sat at the head of the table. To his right was Secretary of State Meg Whitney, fresh back from Europe, and an empty chair where Janelle Thomas or Tyler Reed should have been seated. To the president’s left were CIA director Richard Stephens and Martha Dell. What confused McDermott most was that Clarke seemed so surprised by the Palestinian leader’s rhetoric when they had all warned him this would likely be Ziad’s reaction. Yet Clarke had been adamant that given the enormous amount of money the U.S. and Gulf States were putting on the table to jump-start the Palestinian economy, Ziad would finally come to his senses and play ball.

  “Have you spoken with him?” Clarke asked, barely containing his anger.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And what does he have to say for himself?”

  “I’ve never heard him so angry,” Evans said. “I was genuinely afraid the man might have a heart attack and drop dead on me in the middle of the call.”

  “Is there anyone around him suggesting he may be making a mistake?”

  “Just the opposite, Mr. President—Ziad told me his cabinet is even more furious than he is.”

  “Fine, they don’t like all the particulars. But why reject it outright? Why not come to Camp David and participate in direct negotiations? You told him he’s not getting a dime if he doesn’t come to the table, right?”

  “I did, sir, but he says the plan makes such ‘preposterous concessions’ to the Israelis on Jerusalem and settlements, among other things, that Prime Minister Eitan will simply try to pocket these things and have no incentive to compromise.”

  “How does he know unless he tries?”

  “Ziad insists the plan is a giant trap, one he has no intention of walking into.”

  “Tell me this is just their opening position, Barry,” the president insisted. “Tell me that next week Ziad will soften his position and we’ll find a way to move forward.”

  “I wish I could, Mr. President. But I don’t believe that’s the case. I’m sorry. I know you’ve invested a lot in this. We all have.”

  Clarke thundered a curse. “You better believe we have! And there’s no way I’m going to surrender to—what did Prime Minister Eitan call Ziad?”

  “The mayor of Ramallah.”

  “Exactly, the mayor of Ramallah—I’m running the world’s sole superpower, and I am not going to just surrender to the mayor of Ramallah. We’re going to move forward. We’re going to roll this thing out just like we’ve planned. And we’re going to make our case dire
ctly to the Palestinian people.”

  The silver-haired Secretary Whitney was writing something in her notebook, but at this she removed her reading glasses, set them down, and turned to Clarke. “Mr. President, just to be clear, you’re not suggesting that you still want to go to Jerusalem after all that’s happened, are you?”

  45

  “I’m not suggesting it, Madame Secretary. I’m stating it outright.”

  McDermott stiffened.

  “Let me be clear: I’m going to release this plan,” Clarke continued. “I’m going to invite the Israelis and Palestinians to come to Camp David. And then I’m going to announce that the U.S. will end all financial assistance to any party that refuses to accept and come ready to participate in serious, sustained, direct negotiations that result in a just and comprehensive end to the conflict once and for all.”

  “With all due respect, Mr. President, I’m not sure that’s the wisest course of action,” Whitney replied. “For starters, you could see a serious backlash against you throughout the Arab world. Imagine if anti-American protests break out in Arab streets from Amman to Baghdad to Cairo to Riyadh—then what? That would seriously impair our efforts to build a stronger coalition against Iranian nuclear ambitions. And then, of course, we’re going to see backlash from our European allies as well.”

  “That’s not all, Mr. President,” Martha Dell interjected. “We could see an escalation of violence in the West Bank and Gaza. One spark, and the whole thing could erupt in a Third Intifada. It could take five years or more to tamp this thing down.”

  “I’m not going to let the terrorists or threats of violence intimidate me,” Clarke almost shouted, slamming his fist on the table. “This is a good plan. It’s good for the Israelis, but it’s even better for the Palestinians. Sure, they don’t get everything they want. But that’s the price of saying no to every peace deal for three-quarters of a century. I can guarantee it’s a far better deal than they’ll ever get again. It’s going to create real security and jobs and opportunity for the Palestinian people. It’s going to put these terrorists out of business for good. And that’s why I’m going to Jerusalem to stand on the Temple Mount and make my case, and I guarantee you—mark my words—at the end of the day we’re going to change hearts and minds.”

 

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