“We did discuss it, thoroughly, in fact, when we were in Rome,” Yaşar said, trying to contain his irritation.
“I’m not convinced we were thorough enough.”
It was now clear what al-Qassab was recommending: taking out the good doctor either because he had not performed his duties satisfactorily or because al-Qassab was not convinced he could actually get the man out of Israel after all.
Either way, Yaşar decided, it wasn’t his problem. He’d recruited al-Qassab to make such tactical decisions. Now was not the moment to second-guess his instincts. “It’s your call, my friend,” Yaşar replied. “Just make absolutely sure that whatever you start, you finish.”
88
TEL AVIV, ISRAEL—14 DECEMBER
Marcus drove back to Ben Gurion International Airport.
Geoff Stone and Kailea Curtis were inbound from London, and he’d offered to pick them up at the airport. On the way, he called Oleg, hoping the Raven had come up with something useful, something that would help them crack this case and expose the Kairos network before it struck again. But once more Oleg had nothing.
The president met them in the Situation Room.
For the next forty-five minutes, McDermott, Stephens, and the directors of both the Secret Service and DSS again briefed the president on the high and rising risks of going to Jerusalem. They underscored the fact that they were still no closer to finding, much less capturing, Haqqani or al-Qassab or identifying anyone else that Kairos was working with in Israel generally or in Jerusalem in particular.
And there was more. Stephens explained that the head of Jordanian intelligence had called him the night before to express how worried he was about the upcoming summit and to ask for the opportunity to come to Washington to explain why.
“I told him not to bother,” Stephens said.
“Why not?” Clarke asked.
“Because I already knew what he was going to say.”
“Then enlighten me,” said an increasingly exasperated commander in chief.
“For starters, the Hashemites are convinced the Saudis are trying to seize control of the Temple Mount from them.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Article 9 of the 1994 peace treaty between Israel and Jordan explicitly states, ‘Israel respects the present special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in Muslim holy shrines in Jerusalem. When negotiations on the permanent status will take place, Israel will give high priority to the Jordanian historic role in these shrines,’” Stephens replied, citing the treaty from memory. “The text goes on to state that ‘the parties will act together to promote interfaith relations among the three monotheistic religions, with the aim of working toward religious understanding, moral commitment, freedom of religious worship, and tolerance and peace.’ As such, while the Israelis provide overall security for the Temple Mount and insist they maintain sovereignty over the city, the Jordanians are in charge of the Waqf. What’s more, the king of Jordan—who is himself a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad—sees the protection and oversight of these Muslim holy sites as his personal responsibility. But there is a real and growing concern in Amman that the Saudis, who of course oversee Mecca and Medina, are determined to persuade the Israelis to give them control of the Islamic holy places in Jerusalem. They’re worried that if the Israelis say yes, this would not only violate their treaty but could set off a political explosion inside Jordan that could destabilize the region.”
“How?” the president asked.
“Massive riots against Israel could erupt all across Jordan, calling on the king to rip up the treaty with Israel,” Stephens replied. “If the king were to refuse, the fear is that the masses could turn on him and call for him to step down.”
“Could any of that happen?”
“I certainly can’t rule it out. Look, as you know, sir, I have the greatest respect for the king. The U.S. has no greater or more loyal friend in the Arab world. But let’s be honest—he’s sitting on a volcano, surrounded by a forest fire, waiting for an earthquake. At least 70 percent of his population is Palestinian. Plus, he’s got more than a million Syrian refugees in his country. Most of them can’t stand the fact that Jordan has a peace treaty with Israel. Every few months, the parliament demands the king cancel the treaty, close the Israeli embassy, send the Israeli ambassador home, cancel the deal by which Jordan buys natural gas from Israel—the list of demands goes on and on. On top of which, most Jordanians can’t stand you, are furious to see our embassy moved to Jerusalem, and believe we are not treating the Palestinians in the West Bank fairly, to say the least. So, could that volcano blow? Yeah, it’s possible. And could your summit with the Saudis trigger the political earthquake inside Jordan that could cause the volcano to erupt? I wish I could rule it out, Mr. President. But I can’t.”
Clarke leaned back in his chair for several moments, processing all that he had heard. Just then the secure phone on the table rang. Picking it up, he was told the Saudi king was on the line.
“All right, that’s enough, gentlemen,” the president said, calling the meeting to an end. “I’m going to Jerusalem. I’m holding this summit. You guys do your jobs, and everything will be fine.”
Ali Haqqani lay on his bed in the Kairos safe house in Jerusalem.
The bed was piled high with blankets. The flat was not centrally heated, as his flat back in London had been. What’s more, the space heater in the corner didn’t work. As night fell, temperatures outside and inside the apartment building were dropping fast. The winds were picking up as well, rattling the windows and his soul.
Haqqani felt trapped. Actually, he clarified to himself, he didn’t just feel trapped. He was trapped. He had done what had been asked of him. Now it was al-Qassab’s job to get him out of harm’s way. Surely al-Qassab had a new set of papers and passport for him, along with new credit cards and a new mobile phone. The airport in Tel Aviv wasn’t safe. Haqqani knew that. But what about boarding one of the cruise ships that docked in Haifa every day? Barring that, his handler certainly had a way to slip him into Jordan or perhaps into Egypt via the border post south of Eilat, did he not?
Al-Qassab’s refusal to lay out a plan, much less give Haqqani all the new documentation he would need, didn’t make sense. Learning an entirely new alibi wasn’t easy. It shouldn’t be attempted in a few hours or even a day. It needed to be carefully thought through and precisely memorized, especially to get out of Israel, of all places. He was operating in the heart of enemy territory. It was not a matter of whether he would be questioned upon leaving the country, but for how long and how relentlessly. Haqqani could lie when he had to, but he was not particularly good at it. He was not a spy. He was a doctor—a surgeon—and there was no use pretending to be something he was not.
As he turned off the lamp beside the bed and lay there in the darkness, listening to the winter winds whistling across the mountaintop, he continued to mull al-Qassab’s refusal to lay out an exit strategy. It was unnerving, to be sure, but it was more than that, Haqqani concluded. It was an act of professional irresponsibility. It could put the success of the entire operation in jeopardy, and—
Haqqani suddenly sat bolt upright in the creaking antique bed. A thought had just occurred to him that had never dawned on him before, and the more he considered it, the more he wondered how he had not seen it earlier.
What if Mohammed al-Qassab had no plan to get him out of the country? What if the Syrian was planning to escape on his own and leave Haqqani to the mercies of the Israeli Mossad?
89
15 DECEMBER—52 HOURS BEFORE AIR FORCE ONE LANDS IN ISRAEL
Marcus woke earlier than usual, threw on sweats, and jogged to the embassy.
Keeping with the routine he’d established upon arriving in Israel, he worked out in the embassy gym, spent an hour in the basement gun range, then jogged back to the hotel to clean up. Every step of the way, his thoughts were consumed with al-Qassab and Haqqani. As he stood in the shower, the
hot water pouring over his aching joints and muscles, the steam filling the bathroom, Marcus came to the conclusion that if they had any chance of finding the bomber in time, Haqqani was the key.
There was no way they were going to find al-Qassab. The man was a professional terrorist. He’d spent his entire life plotting mayhem and avoiding capture. He’d certainly made his share of mistakes, but he’d also be especially careful now not to repeat them.
Haqqani, on the other hand, was a physician by training, not a terrorist. Thus, he was much more capable of making mistakes—even likely to, given that he was now in unfamiliar enemy territory and under tremendous stress. If Marcus’s operating theory of the imminent crime was correct, Haqqani had already performed the surgery on whomever al-Qassab had chosen to kill the president, prime minister, and king. The bomb was already in place. The assassin had already had several days to recover from the surgery. He or she was now operating at or near full strength, more or less. That meant that the Pakistani surgeon, while enormously valuable to Kairos, was no longer needed for this operation. If Haqqani was going to bolt, he was going to bolt now—today or tomorrow at the latest. This was their best chance to find him, trying to bluff his way through Ben Gurion, across a border into Jordan or Egypt, or onto a boat in one of Israel’s shipping ports in Tel Aviv, Ashdod, or Haifa.
The smartest thing Haqqani could do was stay put and stay low. If he did that, they’d never find him in time. He’d be holed up somewhere at a safe house well-provisioned enough to allow him to stay in Israel—or the West Bank—for several weeks, perhaps several months, until the storm blew over and the manhunt ended. Yet based on every scrap of intelligence they’d pulled together on the Pakistani, Marcus felt certain the man would try to flee. He’d fled Yemen, after all, before Abdullah al-Asiri had blown himself up. He’d escaped London, too, just before the Sheripovs had blown themselves up. Why wouldn’t he follow the same pattern now?
Haqqani was not a strategist. It was possible he didn’t know the name of the so-called martyr in whom he had placed the bomb. But it was more likely that he did know the name, given all the other information he’d need to elicit about his patient before performing the surgery, from blood type and allergies to whatever medications the bomber was currently on, as well as the bomber’s family medical history. It was also possible that he hadn’t seen the person’s face. Theoretically, the bomber’s face could have been covered with a mask or a sheet or the like and Haqqani had never been allowed to see it at all. But Haqqani must have interviewed the bomber at length to build the medical profile, and certainly he had applied the oxygen mask and anesthesia himself.
Either way, the Pakistani would at least know if the bomber was a man or woman. He’d know the person’s height and weight. And he was likely to know exactly what kind of device had been used, how big it was, how it worked, and what its blast radius was. He might also know where to find Mohammed al-Qassab, what his next movements would be, and what his plans were for escaping the country. And he would certainly have seen and interacted with other Kairos operatives here in Israel and perhaps in the West Bank. Subjected to the proper kind of interrogation, Haqqani would likely be able to provide names, ages, what types of vehicles they were using, and what types of weapons they had, among other critical facts, all of which could help stop the bomber and take down whatever cells Kairos was operating in the country.
Marcus turned off the shower and toweled off. As he lathered up and shaved his face, his thoughts turned to al-Qassab. More than likely, Marcus realized, it was this Syrian who was carrying the mobile phone that would be used to detonate the human bomb at just the precise moment. But if al-Qassab was playing Maxim Sheripov’s role in this scenario, who was playing the part of Amina? Yet unless he wore some sort of masterful disguise, it seemed highly unlikely that al-Qassab could literally be at the side of the shahid as Maxim had been at his sister’s side in the press pool at Number 10 Downing Street. Where would al-Qassab be standing? How would he know when his shahid was in position if he wasn’t at or near his or her side?
When he finished shaving, Marcus took a suit, shirt, and tie out of the closet, then set up an ironing board and pressed them all. After he’d gotten dressed, he polished his shoes and put them on. Then he grabbed his Sig Sauer pistol and the rest of his gear and headed to the elevator.
It was between the fifth and fourth floors that it finally came to him. There was no way Mohammed al-Qassab was going to be at the side of his suicide bomber. For one thing, he had to know that the entire American and Israeli law enforcement communities were hunting for him by now, even though they’d been very careful not to let news leak that his office and apartment had been raided by MI5 and the FBI just days before. He’d know, therefore, that he’d never get into an event with POTUS and the other principals. But al-Qassab had also figured out that he didn’t need to be in the room. Every move President Clarke made was going to be broadcast live on Israeli, American, and Arab television networks and probably European and Russian channels as well. That meant he could be sitting anywhere, watching television in any apartment in Israel or the Palestinian Authority, and know the exact right moment to make the call and blow the peace process and its participants to kingdom come.
They would never find al-Qassab, Marcus concluded. Not before the bomb went off, at least. Maybe Roseboro was right, Marcus mused as the elevator door opened. Maybe they should be jamming every cell tower within a mile of POTUS’s location regardless of how big a fit the press and others would throw.
As Marcus entered the lobby of the King David, Roseboro was already waiting. A moment later, Kailea came up behind them, and Geoff Stone arrived shortly thereafter, followed by Noah Daniels and the rest of the senior team. At 7 a.m. sharp, they all loaded into two armored Suburbans and headed out on the short trip to the U.S. Embassy to gather in the war room and begin their daily working breakfast.
They had to figure this out. They had to find Haqqani, and they had just two days left.
90
48 HOURS BEFORE AIR FORCE ONE LANDS IN ISRAEL
Marcus showed up at the Waqf offices unannounced.
Agents Curtis and Stone were with him, as was Tomer Ben Ami. Dozens of Secret Service, DSS, and Shin Bet agents were also already on-site, along with several K-9 units, conducting security sweeps, testing the magnetometers and X-ray machines, and scrutinizing the IDs of every employee who was coming and going, even as the White House advance team set up and tested banks of lights, cameras, and sound equipment.
“We need to see the Grand Mufti,” Marcus told the veiled woman at the desk.
“Is he expecting you?”
“He should expect us every few minutes until the summit is complete,” Marcus said without a hint of humor in his voice.
The woman just looked at him for a moment. It was the first time in their numerous interactions that Marcus had spoken to her so brusquely.
“I’ll see if he is free,” she said, picking up a phone and punching several buttons. “Dr. Mashrawi, I have Agent Ryker and several colleagues here to see the Grand Mufti. No, they don’t have an appointment. Yes, that’s what I said. Of course. I will tell them.”
The woman set down the phone and looked up at the four of them. “The Grand Mufti is on a call just now. But Dr. Mashrawi will be right out.”
Marcus was not happy, but Tomer’s eye told him to cool his jets and remember the importance of formality and decorum in the Arab world. Several minutes went by, and there was no movement. Marcus checked his watch repeatedly and was about to say something when Mashrawi finally came out of his office.
“I trust you’re feeling better?” Marcus said as Mashrawi apologized for the delay.
Marcus had seen Mashrawi on Saturday morning when he and Tomer had stopped by the Waqf offices to begin their security preparations. He’d been taken aback by just how swollen the man’s face had been and how glassy-eyed he’d seemed. Mashrawi had not even risen from behind his desk to greet them. By n
ow most of the swelling was gone, though he seemed a bit shaky when he walked. His voice was still raspy, and he remained a bit pale.
“Let’s just say I wouldn’t recommend dental surgery on the eve of the most important event in your career, if not your life,” the executive director of the Waqf replied, a mobile phone in his hand. “But yes, I’m feeling much better. Thank you.”
After a few minutes, Mashrawi led them to the Grand Mufti. Agents Stone and Curtis stood post in the hallway. Marcus and Tomer entered and were greeted warmly by the old man. “Forgive me for taking so long on that call,” he offered. “How can I help you?”
“For starters, Your Excellency, we brought you these,” Marcus said, setting two lanyards on the Grand Mufti’s desk. “These are your credentials—all-access passes—one for you, one for Dr. Mashrawi. Wear them at all times. You won’t be allowed to enter the site otherwise.”
“Understood,” said al-Azzam.
“We need to discuss several people on the VIP list you submitted,” Tomer added. “But there’s another thing, too. Beginning tomorrow morning, no one will be allowed to bring a mobile phone or satellite phone onto the mount until the summit is completed.”
Marcus noticed Mashrawi bristle when the Israeli mentioned the new security measure. The Grand Mufti, however, simply asked why.
“Those are our orders—that’s all I know,” Tomer lied.
37 HOURS BEFORE AIR FORCE ONE LANDS IN ISRAEL
“Where are we?” Reuven Eitan asked as he poured himself a cup of coffee.
“Nowhere,” said Asher Gilad.
The Jerusalem Assassin Page 28