The Last Days

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  “Rooftop Three, Rooftop Three, this is Snapshot—we’re taking sniper fire. Third floor. Window eight. “

  “Got it, Snapshot.”

  A U.S. countersniper agent on an opposite roof pivoted hard, aimed his Remington 700 sniper rifle, and fired twice. The shooter’s head exploded. Mancuso, however, had no time for thank-yous. Washington was trying to get his attention again.

  “Snapshot, you need to execute Alpha Bravo.”

  “Negative, negative. You don’t understand. We’re pinned down. Taking sniper fire. We cannot move. “

  ‘Snapshot, listen to me—listen. There’s nothing we can do right now. Nothing. The storms over you right now are even worse out in the Med. Flight ops onboard the Reagan and the Roosevelt are completely shut down. They can’t risk sending in birds right now. You guys are going to have to shoot your way out of this thing until we can get you some help. I’m sorry.”

  CRACK, CRACK, CRACK.

  The shots echoed through the courtyard. Mancuso instinctively looked up to the roof—only to see Rooftop Three falling through the air and smashing onto the pavement. He cursed and threw the phone back into the car in disgust. How exactly was he supposed to get Bennett, Galishnikov, and Sa’id to safety? How was he supposed to get his own men out?

  Three men now rushed their position from across the street.

  McCoy was out of ammo. Bennett was unarmed. So were Galishnikov and Sa’id, pinned down behind him. The three gunmen—their faces covered in black hoods—were running hard, unleashing bursts of AK-47 fire from the hip as they came.

  “Donny!” McCoy screamed.

  Mancuso looked left and unloaded an entire clip. Two attackers went down. The third kept coming. McCoy went for her spare clips. Bennett could see she wasn’t going to make it. This guy was no more than twenty yards away and coming fast. He cleared through the gates, and came up the driveway. Bullets whizzed past him, but didn’t stop him. He raised his machine gun. Bennett stared at his eyes. They were wild with rage. Bennett froze. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t run. Everything seemed to go into slow motion.

  Then he heard it, three loud cracks from a rooftop. CRACK, CRACK, CRACK. It was another American countersniper. The third attacker crashed to the ground. His AK-47 came skidding across the bloody pavement. It came to a stop just a few feet away from where Bennett lay. Bennett hesitated for a moment, then strained to reach it from under the limo. He couldn’t. It was too far away. He glanced over at McCoy. She seemed momentarily paralyzed. He’d never seen her like this and it rattled him. He looked back at the gun, then suddenly, without looking, without thinking, Bennett scrambled out from under the car, into the crossfire, grabbed the AK-47 and brought it to her.

  “Here—you might need this,” he shouted over the gunfire.

  The gesture seemed to snap her back into the moment.

  “No, you keep it,” she said, wiping soot from her eyes. “I’m OK”

  She now reloaded her Uzi, then swiveled around, reached inside the car, and grabbed several more ammo clips from a drawer under the driver’s seat. She stuffed them in her pockets, and turned back to him.

  “OK, Bennett. Back under the car.”

  “No way, Erin, we ‘ve got too much—”

  “Shut up, Jon, and get under the car. You’re the only game in town now. It’s

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  my job to keep you alive, and I haven’t got the time to argue. “

  Her glare was intense. She wasn’t kidding. Bennett did what he was told. McCoy turned and began firing at militants outside the gates. Bennett got under the car and looked to his right. What remained of the front section of the PLC building was now engulfed in flames. The searing heat was unbearable. He could smell the burnt flesh. He could taste the acrid smoke filling the courtyard. But he could barely breathe and his eyes were stinging with soot and dust.

  “Snapshot, this is Rooftop One, over. “

  Mancuso could barely hear over the gunfire. But it was the head of his countersniper unit. He had something urgent. Mancuso took the call. He stopped firing for a moment and engaged his wrist-mounted microphone.

  “Rooftop, this is Snapshot—go.”

  “Snapshot, we’re taking heavy fire up here. But something’s going on over in the courtyard of that mosque across the street. Can’t see much from here. But there’s a crowd gathering down there—around the corner and down the street about a block from your location. “

  “Roger that, Rooftop. Any PA cops over there?”

  “Negative, Snapshot. Regular PA police have taken heavy casualties. They seem to have scattered. The radios are filled with chatter that they’re bringing in reinforcements. But I don’t like the looks of things from up here. “

  “You think the mob’s headed here?”

  “Can’t say for sure. But yeah, that’s my guess.”

  “Roger that, Rooftop. Keep your eyes open and stand by.”

  Mancuso tried to process the situation. They’d all been through years of intense training for an array of worst-case scenarios. They’d all been thor oughly briefed on the possible threats they could face on this trip—specifi cally the threat that radical Islamic groups opposed to the peace process might stage some kind of an attack or disruption. Perhaps a car bomb along the motorcade route to delay or cancel the secretary’s meeting with Arafat. Per haps a suicide bombing in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv or Haifa to distract atten tion. Perhaps Molotov cocktails thrown at the motorcade, or a skirmish with Israeli border guards, or an angry anti-U.S. march through the streets of Gaza City or one of the refugee camps. All these had been thoroughly ana lyzed and war-gamed.

  But no one in ITA—the Bureau of Diplomatic Security’s Intelligence and Threat Analysis Center—or the Tel Aviv field office had talked about, much less planned for, a scenario like this: an inside job by an Arafat loyalist and

  a coordinated, multilevel attack from forces loyal to … to whom? Who was behind this? Who were they really fighting? They knew Palestinian frustration against Arafat had been intensifying for years. Anger among many Palestinian Islamic leaders at the U.S. for the war against Iraq was to be expected. And in the past few days, Israeli electronic intercepts were picking up all kinds of chatter of dissent against the resumption of peace talks. But neither the Israelis nor the Americans had picked up any serious evidence of internal threats against Arafat himself, certainly not from within the PA’s security forces, much less from within Force 17.

  Even “outside” Palestinian threats were extremely rare. In 1998, Arafat’s security forces cracked down on Islamic militants and put Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin under house arrest. At that point, a Hamas faction known as the Izzedine al Qassam Brigades issued a pamphlet in the territories. They warned the PA to back off or risk igniting the “fires of revenge” against Arafat and “the horrors of civil war” in the West Bank and Gaza. Arafat did back off and other top Hamas leaders publicly distanced themselves from the threats. Nothing happened, and the incident was largely forgotten.

  In the fall of 2002, a series of death threats forced Abu Mazen—then serving as Arafat’s top political deputy in the PLO—to leave his home in Ramallah and seek safe haven in Jordan. Some said the threats came from Islamic factions because Mazen had publicly denounced the practice of suicide bombing and called the intifada’s use of violence against Israel a disastrous mistake that set back the Palestinian cause by years. Others said the death threats came from PA factions close to Arafat after rumors that Mazen might be plotting to overthrow Arafat. Mazen heatedly denied the rumors, but it was clear someone was trying to take him out. Suddenly Mazen was on an extended trip to Jordan, Egypt, and the Persian Gulf—anywhere but the West Bank and Gaza.

  A few months later, though, Arafat kissed and made up. Instead of having Abu Mazen arrested for allegedly plotting a coup against him, Arafat named him prime minister of the Palestinian Authority. It seemed a bizarre turn of events. In fact, it was a scene straight out of The Godfather. “Keep your friends clos
e, and your enemies closer.”

  But the move spooked radical Islamic leaders. They openly worried Abu Mazen might cave in to U.S. pressure to end the armed struggle against Israel and crack down on the Islamic militant factions. They called Abu Mazen’s appointment evidence of a “conspiracy” to destroy the Palestinian “resistance to occupation.” Abdallah Al Shami, a senior Islamic Jihad leader, told the Gulf News: “We will continue our resistance to the Zionist enemy with all possible means and we will not be stopped by a Palestinian or a Zionist.”

  Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, a senior Hamas operative at the time, warned Arafat and Mazen that jihad against the Jews was the “sole solution” to the occu pation of Palestine. “Hamas does not believe in political negotiations,” he said, adding that the appointment of a Palestinian prime minister was com pletely unacceptable because the position would have the singular mission of “stopping the uprising.”

  The message was clear: Arafat and Mazen had better watch their backs.

  But that was all years ago. Neither the CIA nor ITA had any warning of this, and now the house of cards was collapsing all around them.

  Flames shot out of the gutted limo.

  Thick black smoke made it hard to see. Mancuso again speed dialed the Op Center in Washington, and went to a secure frequency. Mancuso actually knew Rob Trakowski—not well, but well enough to know he was just doing his job.

  Trakowski was a decent guy, and loyal. If extraction teams could be sent from either of the U.S. aircraft carriers steaming across the eastern Mediter ranean—either the USS Ronald Reagan or the USS Teddy Roosevelt—there wasn’t any doubt in Mancuso’s mind that Trakowski would have dispatched them immediately. Something really was wrong. Weather, politics—it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that Mancuso needed to get his team out before it was too late.

  “Black Tower, this is Snapshot. You still got that feed from Predator Six?”

  “Affirmative—what do you need?”

  “Can you get a shot of the Great Mosque down the street?”

  “Roger that. What are we looking for?”

  “Just tell me what you see.”

  “All right, hold on. “

  Mancuso reloaded his MP-5. It was only a few moments—but it felt like forever.

  “Son of a—”

  “What? What is it?” Mancuso pressed.

  “Sir, you ‘ve a militia of some kind lined up at the back of the mosque. Someone s handing out machine guns, RPGs, ammunition, you name it.”

  “Who?”

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  “A bunch of mullahs—/ can’t tell for sure. They’ve got a bucket brigade aping—they seem to be bringing up weapons from the basement and handing them out the back door, as fast as they can. “

  “How many are we talking about—a few dozen?”

  “Actually, sir—it looks like hundreds. “

  They were only forty yards away and coming fast.

  Their faces covered in red kafHyahs, they poured out of two guard stations in either corner of the compound. Who were these guys? Whose side were they on? Were they coming to help, or finish them off?

  McCoy was pretty sure they were members of Force 17, Arafat’s elite bodyguard unit. All these guys knew for sure was that their leadership had been blown away in the last few minutes. Arafat was dead. Abu Mazen was dead. So were half the Cabinet and most of the top legislators. But did any of the Force 17 guys know how or why? Did they know it was one of their own guys? Maybe not. Most had been manning posts inside the legislature or the adjacent buildings when the motorcade had arrived.

  Likewise, all the DSS agents knew for sure was that the Secretary of State was dead. Many of their own were dead. Now their entire detail was under fire from multiple directions. Palestinians of some kind were doing the shooting. What did it all mean? Was this a one-man coup, or a larger conspiracy? Did the armed men rushing at them work for Arafat, or his killers? Should they trust them, or shoot them?

  Bennett assumed they were good guys. He was wrong. At thirty yards, they began firing from the hip. Glass was cracking but not shattering above him. Round after round was hitting the limo’s doors and windows, but so far, none had broken through.

  “McCoy—behind you!” Bennett yelled, unable to get a clear shot.

  McCoy and Mancuso wheeled around and returned fire. They cut down eight or ten men in the first few bursts. Mancuso’s assault teams took out a dozen more. They also watched their teams’ backs, providing covering fire against threats from the front gate and Omar El Mukhtar Street. Mancuso passed the word that more trouble was on the way.

  “This is an NBC Special Report. Now from Washington, Brian Williams.” It was Monday morning, barely a few minutes after 3:00 A.M. Washington time—just after ten in the morning Gaza time. Most of America was asleep, but each of the cable news networks were already covering the mushrooming

  crisis live. Now, one by one, each of the major U.S. broadcast networks began covering the gun battle in Gaza, as well. NBC simulcast its feed from the MSNBC crew on the ground. ABC and CBS had more difficulties. Without a cable news channel of their own, and without any plans to do a live broadcast of the arrival of the Secretary of State, they were caught without exclusive footage. Soon whoever was up at that hour watching ABC began seeing a feed from Al Jazeera, while those watching CBS saw a combination of feeds coming in from Israel’s Channel Two, the BBC, and an Abu Dhabi TV crew.

  A mob of Palestinian militants were now working their way up the main street, and several side streets, shooting wildly into the air. A wounded CNN cameraman was on the roof. He and his crew broadcast the scene to the world. Their presence caused the U.S. sharpshooters to think twice. Should they wait until they were fired upon directly? Or should they be systematically picking these guys off, one by one, before the rest of the U.S. team was ambushed and outnumbered?

  Only a handful of U.S. officials had ever heard the name Jake Ziegler.

  To most of Washington—and all of the Arab and Islamic world—he didn’t exist. As the CIA’s station chief in the Gaza Strip, it was Ziegler’s job to be invisible. And he was good. In a covert operations center along the Mediterranean coast known as Gaza Station, Ziegler watched the nightmare unfold via satellite feeds from three U.S. networks, as well as from live video images provided by the unmanned aerial reconnaissance vehicle—Predator Six—hovering over the crime scene. His mind reeled. The images were hor rifying. But what did they mean?

  The death of Arafat had the potential of triggering all kinds of scenarios. Few of them were good. The most serious: a Palestinian civil war, as various faction leaders mobilized their forces and tried to seize control of the power vacuum left in Arafat’s wake. Ziegler should know. As far back as the spring of 2002, he’d written the CIA’s National Intelligence Estimate on what could happen when Yasser Arafat one day passed from the scene. Even now—eight years later—he could still recite from memory key findings from his report.

  “Who would be the likely successor to Arafat as head of the Palestinian Authority?” the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee had wanted to know. Ziegler’s answer—factored into his report—was blunt, and grim. “PA and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat has no clear-cut successor,” he wrote, “and any candidate will have neither the power base nor the leadership qualities necessary to wield full authority in the PA.” Ziegler went on to note that,

  “Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), Arafat’s principal deputy and Secretary General of the PLO Executive Committee, and Ahmad Qurei (Abu Ala), Speaker of the PA’s Legislative Council, are poised to assume preeminent roles after Arafat. Security chiefs like Mohammad Dahlan (former head of the Gaza Preventative Security Forces, now in charge of all PA Security Forces), Jabril Rajub (the longtime head of the West Bank Preventative Security Forces), and Fatah Tanzim leader Marwan Barghouti are likely to play important supporting roles in the succession.” He also pointed out that “according to PA laws, after Arafat’s death, Ahmad Qurei, in his role as Speaker o
f the PA’s Legislative Council, would assume the duties of PA president for no more than sixty days, during which time a new president would be elected.”

  The problem, Ziegler warned then, was that the prospects for a peaceful transition were slim to none. The worst-case scenario—a full-blown civil war—was also the most likely. At one point in his top-secret report, Ziegler cited a prediction by Israeli academic Ehud Ya’ari, who’d publicly warned that Arafat’s eventual departure from the scene would likely result in “the creation of regional coalitions” resembling some kind of “United Palestinian Emirates” but “not necessarily in a peaceful alliance.” Any figurehead that emerged to try to take Arafat’s place, Ziegler argued, would need to possess “some of Arafat’s credentials and prestige in order to obtain international recognition.” But, he added, there was a strong possibility that there could be “violent infighting among the competing security services vying for supremacy.”

  The bottom line: no one in Washington had listened, and now Ziegler’s worst fears were coming true.

  So far, the Americans were holding their own.

  Their armor-plated vehicles and the cement barriers nearby were giving them a decent measure of protection. But McCoy knew it wasn’t going to be enough. So did Mancuso. They looked at each other quickly. Both knew they needed an exit strategy—fast.

  “Jon, can you get me more ammo?” Mancuso yelled. “I’m almost out.” Bennett could hear the fear in Mancuso’s voice. It shook what little confidence he had left. Mancuso wasn’t panicking. The anxiety in his voice was controlled. It was measured. But it was real. It was palpable. The man was a professional. He was an experienced security agent, trained his whole life to deal with danger. But if—with all that—he was still worried, what chance did Bennett have? He could hear Mancuso shouting to him. He knew Man