The Last Days

The Last Days Page 2

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  It was al-Rashid who now ensured the survival of Arafat from all threats, foreign and domestic. It was al-Rashid who handpicked Arafat’s security team, grilled them, trained them, and either rewarded or punished them for their loyalty to him, and to the cause of liberating all of Palestine from the River to the Sea. And though the Israelis and Americans were not yet able to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, it was in fact al-Rashid who for years had personally selected and then paid the family of each suicide bomber who slipped across the Green Line into an Israeli coffee shop or pizza parlor or bus station or elementary school to blow themselves up, kill as many Jews

  as possible, and deliver themselves into the arms of Allah.

  But this was different. Now, with the Secretary of State and U.S. delegation en route from Jerusalem and the whole world watching, al-Rashid sat in his father’s home, thinking the unthinkable.

  Ahead of the motorcade lay the Erez Checkpoint.

  The Gaza Strip. No-man’s-land.

  Here in a sliver seven miles wide and twenty miles long lived more than a million souls—half under the age of fifteen—and the population would double over the next decade. Six in ten men were unemployed. Most families lived in refugee camps amidst unimaginable squalor. The Strip was a breeding ground for radical Islam and volcanic hatred of Israelis and Americans that could erupt in a firestorm at any moment—without warning—and often did.

  The motorcade slowed. Bennett’s heart beat a little faster. Jittery Israeli soldiers, their M-l6s locked and loaded, opened the steel barricades and guided them past concrete bunkers, guard towers, searchlights, and barbed-wire fences. Border guards in Humvees and army Jeeps mounted with heavy machine guns watched their every move. It was an eerie experience. For they were leaving Israel proper and entering the most dangerous and densely pop ulated hundred forty square miles on the face of the earth.

  Secretary of State Tucker Paine took Bennett’s call.

  Bennett wanted to brief him on his conversations with Ibrahim Sa’id, and Paine needed to sound interested. Paine didn’t appreciate the New York Times profile that made Bennett, not Paine himself, appear the mastermind of this deal. He felt quite sure his unattributed quotes had done their appropriate damage, reminding Bennett who was in charge. But he also had to watch his step. The president trusted Bennett a great deal, and the last thing Paine needed was more trouble from the Oval Office.

  Indeed, Tucker Paine had been dispatched for this delicate mission precisely because he could truthfully tell Arafat how vehemently he had opposed the president’s decision to attack Iraq. Who better to win a hearing with Arafat than a Secretary of State who’d almost been fired for his heated opposition to the president’s policy of “regime change,” a policy that had left Baghdad in ruins and the Atlantic alliance in tatters.

  Time was running out.

  But al-Rashid couldn’t think clearly. He knew what they wanted. It was something he’d considered for months. But the implications were enormous.

  The American, after all, was bringing a death sentence for the Palestinian revolution. Did he think they could be bought off? Had the Americans no idea what this revolution was all about, what fueled these fires? Why not simply destroy this infidel and send the world a message. Surely that was a cause worth dying for, was it not? And yet, who was more culpable—the infidel, or the betrayer?

  How could he do it? How could he even consider this meeting? How could he even consider cutting a deal with these devils? How could he betray the martyrs—the blood of al-Rashid’s own father—now, of all times, with their brothers decimated in Baghdad? For what? To make the Palestinians rich? To let their sons become fat and happy? To let their daughters grow up to drink Starbucks and listen to Britney Spears and shop at Victoria’s Secret? Again al-Rashid glanced at the e-mail. He knew what the answer must be. He could not merely send little girls to do the cause of justice. It was time to be a man. It was time to do the job himself.

  The motorcade roared through Beit Lahiya.

  Uniformed policemen of the Palestinian Authority—commonly referred to as the PA—manned checkpoints at every major intersection. But it hardly made Bennett feel more secure. The PA was arguably the most dysfunctional pseudogovernment on earth. It remained Yasser Arafat’s private fiefdom. The security forces operated at his pleasure. If Arafat said you were safe—and meant it—you probably were. If not, you’d be advised to stay as far away as possible. So “supplementing” the Palestinian police presence were heavily armed American DSS agents, strategically positioned along the way. Not since President Clinton’s visit to Gaza in December 1998 had security been this tight. Anti-American sentiment was running high. But so, too, were hopes that a Palestinian state might not be so far off.

  They gathered in the White House Situation Room.

  National Security Advisor Marsha Kirkpatrick and White House Chief of Staff Bob Corsetti drank coffee and watched the live coverage. From a Fox camera positioned on the roof of a hotel near the PLC headquarters, they could see the motorcade coming down Salah El Din Street, packed with crowds spilling into the road despite the metal barricades and hundreds of

  Palestinian security forces set to work a double shift. A moment later, they could see the motorcade turn onto Omar El Mukhtar Street, past the Great Mosque on the right and the Welaya Mosque on the left.

  Just past Jumal Abdel-Nasser Street, the motorcade finally turned into the gates of the PLC’s executive compound, past a dozen Palestinian flags snapping in the winter winds. A CNN shot from the roof of the Rashad Shawa Cultural Centre across the street showed the vehicles pulling into a huge courtyard. Two new five-story glass-and-steel administrative buildings stood to the left and right. Each was connected to an impressive three-story legislative headquarters upon which towered a thirty-foot gold dome. The entourage pulled into the compound’s semicircular driveway, and parked behind huge, waist-high concrete barriers designed to minimize—if not fully prevent—the prospect of Israeli tanks driving straight into a cabinet meeting and obliterating the Palestinian Authority. DSS agents jumped out of the last Suburban. They took up positions around the secretary’s limousine and ran a sector check.

  “Globe Trotter is secure,” lead DSS agent Doug Lewis told his team.

  “Blueprint, secure.”

  “Fog Horn, secure.”

  “Perimeter One, secure.”

  “Perimeter Two, secure.”

  “Rooftop team leader, we’re secure.” 6

  “Snapshot, secure.”

  “Roger that, we’re good to go.”

  Agent Lewis stepped out of the lead limousine.

  He opened the door for Secretary Paine, code-named Sunburn for his nearly albino complexion. The secretary was immediately greeted by a blind ing flurry of flashbulbs and questions. The secretary simply smiled and waved. Bennett got out of his car and watched Paine button his Brooks Brothers coat, straighten his red silk power tie, and begin walking across the courtyard to center stage, trailed by Lewis and two more DSS agents. It was quite a walk—almost forty yards to the front steps of the legislative building, past three marble fountains and a huge bronze replica of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.

  Following strict protocol, Bennett, McCoy, and the others would hang back and wait for the statesmen to shake hands and go inside before joining them. Over the hood of the limousine, Bennett could see Arafat emerging from the front door in a wheelchair—flanked by Prime Minister Abu Mazen

  with his distinctive silver hair, silver mustache, and wide-rimmed glasses.

  Arafat’s wheelchair was being pushed by his ubiquitous security chief, Khalid al-Rashid. What struck Bennett first was how small Arafat looked— just five foot four—and how old he looked, even from a distance. His thinning gray hair was combed back over his head, but largely covered by his trademark black-and-white checkered kaffiyah. He’d lost weight. His pale, gaunt face wore a day’s worth of stubble—why bother shaving for the Amer icans?—and his lower lip and his hands shook slightly from
the onset of Parkinson’s disease.

  Forbes magazine said Arafat was worth a cool $1.3 billion. It seemed hard to believe. For the first time, Bennett was actually glad to be there. He found himself fascinated by this feisty, frail, strange little man in olive army fatigues, a man who for five decades had captured headlines the world over.

  Mohammed Yasser Abdul-Ra’ouf Qudwa Al-Husseini.

  A.k.a. Yasser Arafat.

  A.k.a. Abu Amar.

  Born August 24, 1929, in Egypt, or—he claimed—in Jerusalem.

  Founder of Fatah in 1956.

  Head of the PLO since 1969.

  A 1994 Nobel Peace Prize winner who somehow had never actually made peace.

  With Abu Mazen at his side, al-Rashid gently lowered Arafat’s wheelchair.

  He maneuvered down the front steps and reached inside his coat pocket to make sure it was still there, hidden by his stocky build and thick Italian leather coat.

  It was an odd moment—indiscernible to anyone but a professional—but even from a distance it caught the eye of Erin McCoy and Donny Mancuso, Bennett’s lead DSS agent. Why would a security chief of al-Rashid’s stature be pushing his principal’s wheelchair? Why not let a bodyguard do that job while al-Rashid stayed a few steps back, surveying the scene? And why take his hand, even for a moment, off Arafat’s wheelchair as he lowered it down a few steps?

  Al-Rashid quickly withdrew the hand from his pocket, and again placed it back on the handle of the wheelchair. A chill rippled down McCoy’s spine. Instantly suspicious, she glanced over to Mancuso, wondering if he’d seen the same thing. But then, what exactly had she seen really? And what was she supposed to do about it? Was the Secretary of State and their team really in danger of being shot at by Yasser Arafat’s personal security chief? Here? In front of the international media? The whole notion was ludicrous. She was becoming

  a little paranoid on her first trip to Gaza, McCoy thought—too much his tory, too many briefings. She tried to drive it all from her mind and stay focused. But she couldn’t. It wasn’t a rational thought she was processing. It was instinct, and hers were rarely wrong.

  It was gray and wet and cold.

  Yet beads of sweat were forming on al-Rashid’s forehead and upper lip. Do I wait for the secretary to cross the courtyard? Do I wait until after Arafat greets him? Or would that just provoke a devastating U.S. attack against Pal estine? Look what the Americans have just done to Iraq. Is now the right time? Is this the legacy I want to bring upon my family, my people? And yet…

  Arafat began coughing violently in the damp air. Al-Rashid stopped pushing the wheelchair and again reached into his coat pocket. McCoy and Mancuso tensed as the secretary finished crossing the huge courtyard, though for some reason each hesitated to say anything to the lead DSS agents up ahead. It was a false alarm. Out of al-Rashid’s pocket came a white cotton hand kerchief, which he handed to his leader. A moment later, the secretary reached the portico, draped with Palestinian and American flags. He stood in front of Arafat and Mazen, smiled and reached down to shake the old man’s trembling hand. A hundred cameras snapped a thousand pictures. McCoy began to breathe a sigh of relief—but suddenly al-Rashid plunged his hand back into his coat pocket, and pulled out a long red wire with an ignition switch.

  McCoy and Mancuso reacted immediately— “Get down, get down!”—tackling Bennett, Galishnikov, and Sa’id and trying to cover them with their own bodies. The secretary and his two DSS agents just stopped and stared, frozen for a fraction of a second in utter disbelief. Like the herd of international journalists watching in horror, they were unable to move, unable to react as al-Rashid screamed out, “Allahu Akbar”—“God is Great” and pulled the trig ger.

  The massive explosion ripped through the courtyard. The sound was deaf ening. The entire facade of the legislative building began to collapse. Blood and body parts began showering down from the sky. In the blink of an eye, in a fraction of a second, on live worldwide television, the two highest-ranking Palestinian leaders and the U.S. Secretary of State were obliterated in a massive fireball.

  Bennett landed hard on the cold, wet pavement and felt McCoy slam down on his back. They were largely shielded from the full effects of the blast by the limousine beside them. Now they tried to shield themselves from

  the falling debris. Fire and smoke seemed to suck up all the oxygen. Bennett couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. A severed, bloody hand landed inches from his face. He turned away, and underneath the car, through a gap in concrete barriers, could see the hailstorm of rubble and glass crashing down on the open courtyard—a grisly scene unlike anything he’d ever witnessed. And then, in an instant—as quickly as it had happened—it was over. It was quiet. And only then did the irony begin to dawn on Jon Bennett.

  Yasser Arafat was dead, at the hands of a Palestinian suicide bomber.

  r

  “Code Red, Code Red—Sunburn is gone, I repeat, Sunburn is gone.”

  Donny Mancuso shouted into his wrist-mounted microphone. He was now the special agent in charge. Most of the secretary’s detail lay dead or dying. The rest lay on the ground, weapons drawn—a combination of Uzis, MP-5 submachine guns and Sig-Sauer P228s. They scanned the scene and tried to make sense of it all. Neither he nor they had any idea what had really just happened, or what other threats they might face. But it was Mancuso’s job to make sure they didn’t get blindsided again.

  By motorcade—even at high speeds—it would take nearly an hour to get the wounded back to medical facilities in Jerusalem. Tel Aviv would take at least ninety minutes, maybe more. Some might not make it that long. Several had third-degree burns. Others faced massive loss of blood.

  Lightning flashed across the dark sky.

  Thunder rumbled overhead and the winds were picking up. Another torrential downpour was coming any moment. McCoy began to stir. She shook glass off her back and out of her hair, then leaned inside the open limo door beside her. She reached under the driver’s seat, and grabbed her Uzi. She popped in a thirty-two-round clip of 9-mm ammo and stuffed two others in her jacket pocket. Bennett could feel his heart racing.

  Mancuso grabbed his MP-5.

  He crawled forward—around McCoy and Bennett—to open the front

  door of Snapshot and grab the satellite phone off the front seat. He speed dialed the State Department’s Operations Center back in Washington— code-named Black Tower—and connected with Agent Robbie Trakowski, the night-watch officer.

  “Black Tower, this is Snapshot,” said Mancuso. “We are Code Red—/ repeat, we are Code Red. We have extensive casualties. Requesting immediate air support and extraction. Acknowledge.”

  He began to hear sirens in the distance.

  “Roger that, Snapshot. We’ve got you on a live video feed from the Pred ator over your location. Let me check on air support and extraction. Stand by one.”

  It sounded like a few firecrackers, at first.

  Then three machine-gun rounds exploded into the open limo door above him. Someone was firing at them from the street. Eight or nine more rounds riddled the engine block just a few feet away from him. The crackle of automatic-weapons fire was getting louder, and closer. Crowds were running in all directions. People were screaming. All around them, DSS agents and PA policemen were dropping. Bennett suddenly felt someone pushing him under Snapshot’s chassis. It was McCoy, trying to shield him from the gun battle erupting around them.

  A man in a red kaffiyah was sprinting toward them—toward McCoy. He was screaming something in Arabic and firing a 9-mm automatic pistol. McCoy’s body blocked most of Bennett’s view to the street—but not all of it. He saw McCoy click the safety off her Uzi and spray repeated bursts of return fire. The man dropped to the pavement not far from the open gates. Bennett tried to breathe again. That’s when it hit him—he had no weapon.

  Suddenly—a flash—a puff of white smoke—then he heard the sizzle.

  “RPG,” McCoy shouted.

  It was too late. From a darkened window across the street, a
rocket-propelled grenade streaked across the top of the crowd, through the wrought-iron gates and into the open door of the secretary’s limousine. Globe Trotter erupted. The explosion blew out the windows and ripped off the roof. Glass and shrapnel were flying everywhere. Flames and thick black smoke poured from the wreckage.

  Bennett saw six more DSS agents incinerated in front of him. He’d have slipped into shock, but everything was happening too fast. More machine-gun fire erupted from windows across the street as McCoy, Mancuso and his assault teams from the Suburbans behind them fought back.

  “Black Tower, this is Snapshot. We are now under fire.”

  “We acknowledge, Snapshot. You need to stand by for a moment and

  ‘ well—”

  “Negative, negative. We are taking heavy fire from unknown assailants. Machine-gun fire and RPGs. Sunburn’s gone. Globe Trotter’s gone. We’re taking heavy fire. We need close air support and extraction teams immediately—acknowledge. “

  The sky was getting darker. The winds were getting stronger, whipping through the courtyard, fueling the raging fires all around them.

  “Snapshot, this is Black Tower. Air support from the Med is a no-go. I repeat—”

  “Why not?” Mancuso shouted. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Calm down, Snapshot.”

  Mancuso let out a string of obscenities.

  “Don’t tell me to calm down. We’re out in the open and you’re telling me you guys won’t send us air support?”

  A deafening crash of thunder shook everyone. Bitter cold driving rains began pelting down on them. Bullets ricocheted off the pavement all around them. Now shots were coming from a smashed open window on the third floor of the PLC administrative building towering over their position. Mancuso ducked closer to the limo and unleashed several bursts toward the windows.

 

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