Vince Flynn Collectors' Edition 2

by Vince Flynn

  Valerie Jones, the president’s chief of staff, spoke first. “I just heard about it for the first time five minutes ago.” Jones turned to look past Michael Haik, the president’s national security advisor, to Irene Kennedy.

  Kennedy spoke. “I received the call early this morning. He was very serious, but then again, he usually is.”

  Hayes leaned over on the left armrest and stroked his chin. This whole thing was strange, a first for him in his relatively short career as president. Nothing good could come of it, he was sure of that. Looking up at Kennedy, he asked, “Have they ever done something like this before?”

  Kennedy thought about her dealings with the Israelis over the last two decades. “They request backdoor meetings with us from time to time. Usually for the obvious reasons: they don’t want the press or any opposition to find out,” Kennedy shook her head slightly, “but I don’t seem to ever remember them going straight to the top.”

  “This can’t be good. The director of Mossad flies to the United States and pretty much demands to see me. I don’t see anything positive that can come out of this.” Hayes looked up at his NSA. “Michael, what’s going on over there? Any flare-ups in the peace process that I haven’t been told about?”

  “No, it’s the same old thing. Arafat demands XY and Z and then walks away from the table. The bombs start to go off and then a month later they sit back down at the peace table and start over again.”

  “It’s not that,” Kennedy said in a thoughtful tone. “If it had something to do with the peace process they wouldn’t fly Ben Freidman all the way in from Tel Aviv. Their ambassador would take care of it, or the prime minister would call.” She paused and thought about another possibility. “No,” she said making up her mind. “Ben Freidman means real trouble. Something is going on over there that we don’t know about. Something serious.”

  “Great,” the president grumbled. With more than a little frustration he said, “And none of you have any idea what it is.”

  “Sorry, sir,” was all Haik could say.

  The president thought about the situation for a moment. He was tempted to pick up the phone and call the Israeli prime minister, but caution got the better of him. The PM was due to visit the U.S. in two weeks. There was obviously a reason for sending Freidman. The president looked to Haik and said, “Get General Flood over here. I want him to sit in on this.”

  Haik grabbed the white handset of the bulky secure telephone unit sitting on the president’s desk and hit the speed dial button for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Seconds later, General Flood was on the line and the national security advisor was explaining the situation. The general said he would be there just as quickly as his limousine could take him across the Potomac.

  President Hayes checked his watch. It was a quarter past eight. “Freidman will be here at nine?”

  “Yes,” Kennedy answered.

  “All right, between now and then I would like the three of you to try and come up with some idea of what this is all about.” President Hayes snatched his glasses from his face and glared at three of his most trusted advisors. All he got in return were blank stares.

  COLONEL FREIDMAN AND his bodyguard caught a taxicab on Connecticut Avenue. Freidman could have easily requisitioned one of the embassy’s limousines for the trip but he preferred to keep a low profile. Anyone arriving at the White House in a limousine was sure to get his or her photograph taken. There were other cities where Freidman wouldn’t dare to move about unless he was entombed in an armor-plated limousine, but Washington was not one of them. All of the various groups of the Middle East knew the rules. To attempt an assassination on American soil would be suicide, both financially and politically.

  As the taxi headed toward the White House, Freidman stared out the window at the embassies they passed. The concentration of power in this town was unlike any other in the world, and Freidman was here to make a huge power play. He respected America; it was, after all, his country’s greatest ally. Every year the Americans pumped billions of dollars into the Israeli economy, and the military aid they supplied was invaluable, but then again America had riches beyond her needs. There were many in Freidman’s country though, who felt the Americans could give more, that they could do more to secure the borders of the only true democracy in the Middle East. Freidman was one of those people.

  Trusted with the security of his tiny homeland, Freidman would stop at almost nothing to get what was good for Israel. He respected America, but in the end that respect was greatly overshadowed by his ultimate loyalty to the Israeli cause. America wasn’t always willing to do everything they asked, and that was where Freidman often came in. The ugly secret was that the Mossad spied on the U.S. Not only did they spy, but from time to time they also ran covert operations against their greatest ally. That’s not what this meeting was about, at least not yet. Played in the best possible light, it was about two allies taking on a common enemy. In the perpetually cynical eyes of Ben Freidman, it was getting the U.S. to do Israel’s dirty work.

  The taxi dropped them off two blocks from the White House, and the two men nonchalantly approached the northwest gate. They cleared security and were escorted to the White House Situation Room by one of the president’s aides. Without having to be asked, Freidman’s bodyguard headed down the hall to the White House Mess. His boss was secure inside the White House. The man would use the opportunity to get a cup of coffee and see if he could overhear any useful conversations. When Freidman entered the small conference room in the basement of the West Wing, he wasn’t surprised in the least that there were only five people in attendance.

  He was a little surprised, however, that no one rose to greet him. He took note of the mood and the lopsided seating arrangement. The president was where he expected him to be, at the head of the table; Kennedy was opposite the commander in chief at the other end and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs; the national security advisor and the chief of staff were all on one side of the table. Freidman draped his overcoat over one of the four empty chairs on his side of the table and looked to Kennedy to break the frigid air.

  Smiling, the head of Mossad said, “Thank you for arranging this on such short notice, Irene.”

  Kennedy nodded, but offered no words.

  Freidman took the hint and sat. Their moods would change when he showed them what he had in his briefcase. Turning to the president he said, “Thank you, Mr. President, for meeting with me. I hope you know we wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t extremely important.”

  Like Kennedy, Hayes nodded, but gave no answer. Yes, the Israelis were their friends, but Hayes was not as blind to the often selfish goals of the Jewish state as some of his predecessors. He had given specific instructions to the others. No warm greetings were to be extended to the head of Israeli Intelligence. Freidman had called this meeting, and it would be his responsibility to do the talking.

  “Have you noticed anything alarming out of Baghdad recently?” Freidman looked to Kennedy.

  Before Kennedy could answer the president said, “Mr. Freidman, I’m rather short on time this morning. I think it would serve us best if you told us what this is all about.”

  Freidman placed his elbows on the table and said, “We have unearthed some very alarming news, Mr. President, and I’m afraid you aren’t going to like it one bit.”

  Freidman reached for his briefcase. After entering the combination, he popped the clasps and retrieved a large red legal file. The file was sealed with a string and wax. Freidman broke the seal and extracted a sheaf of papers with a four-by-seven, black-and-white photograph clipped to the front. Sliding the photo over so the president could view the image, he said, “This is Park Chow Lee. He’s North Korean. As you might imagine, he sticks out like a sore thumb in Baghdad. Park is a doctor.” Freidman extracted several more photos and slid them in front of President Hayes. Where the first photo was posed and clear, these were taken from some distance and were slightly grainy.

  “That first photo, M
r. President, of Park in the white lab coat, is him walking into the Al Hussein Hospital in Baghdad.” He paused briefly to see if anyone was going to ask any questions. They didn’t, so he continued. “There’s only one problem with the photo. Mr. Lee is not a medical doctor, he has a Ph.D. in nuclear physics.” Confident that he finally had their attention, Freidman decided to sit back and pause for a second.

  Kennedy sat at the far end of the table and observed. She could see where this was going. Her daily intelligence briefings had contained some flash reports about Saddam doing business with the economically bankrupt state of North Korea. Saddam was sending them oil, and in return North Korea was sending him arms and technology. It also appeared from where Ben Freidman was heading that they were also trading talent. Kennedy watched as President Hayes briefly looked at her. She gave him a slight nod, confirming that the information was most likely legitimate. She noticed a hint of irritation in the president’s face, and wondered briefly if it was directed at her. It probably was. When Freidman was gone she would have to explain why Mossad had beat the CIA to the punch. That was fine. Kennedy had no problem admitting that where the Middle East was concerned they could not compete with Mossad when it came to putting people on the ground.

  “We have photographed Mr. Lee coming and going from the hospital for almost three months. He arrives early, leaves late and sometimes even stays for several days.”

  The photos of Lee were being passed around the table. National Security Advisor Haik picked up on something Freidman had said. “How do you know he’s spending the night? Isn’t it possible you missed him leaving?”

  “It is, but,” Freidman pulled out several more photos, “we also know where he and the other North Korean scientists are staying.” Freidman passed the photos across the table to Haik.

  The president was not in a patient mood, so he asked rather abruptly, “Where is this going, Mr. Freidman?”

  “It’s going to a very bad place, sir.” Freidman exhaled a deep breath. “With the help of Mr. Lee and the other North Korean scientists, Saddam is about to get his greatest wish. In less than one month Saddam will have added three nuclear weapons to his arsenal.”

  President Hayes blinked and said, “What?”

  “By the end of the year Saddam will have three fully operational nuclear weapons.”

  “How is that possible?” Hayes looked to his advisors. “Everything I have been told says we’re two years away from having to deal with this. Not a month!”

  “Those estimates, sir,” stated Kennedy, “were based on Saddam rebuilding his own nuclear program. They did not include him bypassing the developmental stage and purchasing technology, components and scientists from North Korea.”

  The president was seething. His administration had been making great strides with the North Koreans. At this very moment they were trying to push through a billion-dollar aid package to try to help the anemic North Korean economy get back on its feet. Kim Jong Il himself had told Hayes that he would personally bring an end to North Korea’s state-sponsored terrorism. The president told himself to put North Korea out of his mind for the moment. That would have to be dealt with later.

  Stabbing his index finger at the photos in front of him, Hayes asked, “How accurate is this information?”

  “I consider it to be very reliable, sir.” Freidman kept his eyes focused on the president and did not waver.

  “How reliable?” Hayes wanted more.

  “This is, of course, not to leave this room.” Freidman took a moment to look each of the president’s advisors in the eye. The mole he had cultivated in the Iraqi regime was the highest Mossad had ever turned. To lose him would be devastating. “We have someone on the inside, and I can tell you nothing more. He is well-placed and highly reliable.”

  “Under a goddamn hospital,” was all General Flood could say. His military mind was already trying to come up with ways to level the building.

  “What type of weapons are we talking about?” asked Haik.

  “Two of them are ten-megaton nukes designed to be delivered by the new Scud Three missile, and the third is a five-megaton nuke designed to be delivered by bomber or specialized artillery.”

  The room fell deathly silent. All of them had sat through enough intelligence briefings to know the level of carnage just one of the bombs could cause. Each of the three individually was more than sufficient to level Tel Aviv.

  “Mr. President, none of us are happy about this. Least of all the leaders of my country.” Freidman paused for a second before continuing. “I have been sent here by my prime minister to inform you that we will not allow these weapons to be deployed.” Freidman’s tone was calm but determined. Though he had been sent to Washington to get the Americans to do Israel’s dirty work, there was no mistaking the resolve of his people. If the Americans failed to act, Israel would.

  President Hayes nodded slowly. He had already deduced as much. There was no way Israel would let a megalomaniac like Saddam join the nuclear club. President Hayes wasn’t about to allow it, and he was more than five thousand miles away. The Israelis were separated by only five hundred miles.

  Finally, President Hayes asked, “When are you heading back to Israel?”

  “I leave this evening.”

  Hayes drummed his fingers on the table while he thought of the next step. “Mr. Freidman, I appreciate you making the trip. Could you wait outside for a minute while I have a word with my advisors?”

  Freidman collected the photos and placed them back in his briefcase. When he had left the room Hayes took off his suit coat and began pacing. He thought about taking his new director designate of the CIA to task for allowing him to be blindsided, and then decided it wasn’t fair, and in the end probably counterproductive. Instead he said, “Around the horn. I want to hear opinions on what we just heard. Starting with you, Valerie.” The president stopped and looked at his chief of staff.

  “I think before we do anything we need to confirm that this is really the case.”

  “Oh, it’s for real,” moaned General Flood. The bear-size warrior had his elbows on the table and his face buried in his hands. “They would never send Ben Freidman all the way to Washington if it wasn’t. Besides, we know how eager Saddam is to get his hands on one of these things. He’s just found a way with the help of the North Koreans to cut a few years out of the process.”

  “Michael?” asked Hayes.

  The national security advisor replied, “We need to make sure this time line is correct, and then we need to get a guarantee from the Israelis that they will not act before we have time to come up with a solution.”

  “General?”

  Flood lifted his face from his hands. “I hate to say it, Mr. President, but we need to level this facility, and my guess is Tomahawks aren’t going to do the job. We are going to have to put planes over Baghdad. We might lose some people, but they are definitely going to lose people. I mean they put the damn thing under a hospital for a reason. They don’t think we have the stomach for it.” Flood was extremely concerned. He had been warning everyone who would listen about the problem of nuclear proliferation for years. He leaned forward and looked at the president’s chief of staff. “I’m telling you right now, Valerie, I know how your mind works. You’re ten steps ahead of the rest of us. You’re thinking of the political fallout this will create. You’re imagining the reporters standing in front of the hospital while they pull the twisted bodies of children from the rubble. Well, let me replace it with some different pictures. Imagine an entire U.S. Navy carrier battle group patrolling the Persian Gulf. Now blink your eyes and they’re gone. Over seven thousand men and women vaporized. Imagine a nuclear warhead exploding over the oil fields of Saudi Arabia. Now imagine the entire world economy plunged into a depression because those oil fields are rendered useless for the next hundred years due to radioactivity.”

  Flood paused just long enough to catch his breath. “That’s just for starters. Now imagine Saddam throwing two of t
hese things at Israel, figuring he can wipe them off the map before they have the chance to retaliate. There’s only one problem with that plan. The Israelis aren’t stupid. They keep their nukes spread out in secure underground hardened bunkers. Some of those weapons will survive, and whoever is left won’t hesitate to return the favor to Saddam. We’ll have a full-scale nuclear war in the Middle East. The initial blasts will kill millions. God only knows how many more will die from the fallout, but it won’t be pretty. The region will shut down, oil production will screech to a halt, and the economic tidal wave will make the Great Depression look like a hiccup.”

  The president had stopped pacing halfway through the general’s rant. Looking at the military’s top officer, Hayes was slightly unsettled by the fact that he agreed with everything the man had just said. So much so that a brief shiver ran down his spine. Finally looking to Kennedy he asked, “Irene?”

  Kennedy also agreed with everything that had been said so far. “They want us to take care of the problem for them.”

  “You mean Israel?”

  “Yes.” Kennedy folded her arms across her chest. “But make no mistake about it—if we don’t act, they will.”

  “Shit.” The president walked back to his chair and sat. He tried to decide on a course of action. Leveling a hospital with God only knows how many innocent civilians inside was not a pleasant thought, but taking no action at all, and being confronted with one of the scenarios that General Flood had described, was horrific.

  For the first time in his presidency he was honestly scared. He would have to call the Israeli prime minister at some point, but that could wait for a day. The list of people he would have to tell domestically was long, but due to secrecy concerns, most of them would have to wait until the last possible moment. The best move right now was to delegate and manage.

  As if he were pulled out of a trance, the president lifted his head and said, “Irene, I want you to take Freidman back to Langley and debrief him personally. Get as much information as you can from him, and then as quietly as possible try to confirm it. But, before you bring any of your people in on this, I want you to call me and tell me what you’ve learned.”