The Last Jihad (9 page)

It was worst than the first.

“This is a live feed. Buckingham Palace in London is also on fire, apparently hit by a barrage of mortars and RPGs less than ten minutes ago.”

Everyone in the room gasped.

“London Station reports machine-gun fire can presently be heard in the streets around the palace. I’m trying to get more on that right now, sir.”

“Is the queen there?” asked FBI Director Harris.

“It seems she is,” said Mitchell. “Our embassy reports she’s OK, but she’s being airlifted to a military hospital as a precaution.”

On the video screen, an aide could now be seen handing Mitchell a note.

“What’ve you got now, Jack?” asked the VP.

“Holy…is this confirmed?…are you sure?…Mr. Vice President, I’ve just been handed a report that a 747 has just crashed into the Royal Palace in Saudi Arabia.”

“What?”

“One of my guys was actually driving to the palace when it happened. Saw the whole thing. Just sent a flash traffic email to the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh which was immediately forwarded here to Langley. Our agent started taking high-eight video footage. We should be getting that uplinked to us momentarily.”

“Sir, this is Burt at the Pentagon.”

“Yes, Burt?”

“Sir, I have to say I now think we’re looking at a coordinated global attack on our allied leaders. We need to go to DefCon Two immediately, not Three. And I’m sorry, I think now we’ve got to shut down the air traffic control system.”

“A full ground stop—no planes up or down—on the day before Thanksgiving?” asked the Deputy Treasury Secretary from Japan.

“I don’t think we have any choice, sir,” Trainor replied, directing his remarks to the vice president.

“Jack, do we have any reason to believe we’re going to see attacks on civilians? Or is Burt right, this is a series of assassination attempts designed to decapitate governments friendly to us?”

“Well, Bill, I can’t rightly say, for sure. I can’t go on record about what else might be coming. You got a bunch of lunatics out there right now trying to undo Western civilization. But, yes, for the moment, the initial evidence suggests a concerted campaign of assassinations, targeted at friendly governments—mostly NATO governments—rather than widespread civilian terrorism. But, sir, you know as well as I do that that could change very fast.”

The vice president took a deep breath and took a sip of fresh coffee, just poured and prepared to his liking—heavy cream, three sugar cubes—by a Filipino Navy steward.

“All right. Look, here’s what we’re going to do. Marsha, put a full ground stop on private planes immediately. But hold off a bit on a full commercial ground stop. At least until I can talk to the president. I’ll get you an answer soon. Burt, take us to DefCon Two. The president will definitely concur on that and I’ll get it written out at Crystal Palace in the next few minutes. Tuck, send out a flash traffic alert to all of our embassies worldwide. Explain what’s happening. Tell them to be in immediate contact with the leadership of their host countries that a wave of assassination attempts is under way. Then you get a conference call set up immediately with the foreign ministers of the G-8. Find out what they know and what they’re doing about it.”

“From here, or State?”

“Good question. I don’t know. Bud?”

“Sir, I don’t think any of you should leave that bunker right now, not with what we’re seeing unfold,” said Norris.

“I think he’s right, sir,” Kirkpatrick agreed. “We’ve got the facilities in the next room over. Tuck, you can run your diplomatic track from Conference Room Two while we coordinate with the president and the Task Force from here.”

“Good, do it,” said the VP.

“Jack, anything else? Tell me some good news.”

“Sorry, sir,” said Mitchell. “I’m afraid I don’t have any.”

Bennett slipped his U.S. passport and American Express Gold Card to the Delta ticket agent behind the bulletproof glass.

He’d already been in line for nearly half an hour, and the line behind him now stretched out the door. He began to think he’d never get out. But membership does have its privileges. Nine minutes later he got lucky—the last seat on the last flight that could get him to New York before the day’s end, and it just happened to be first class.

The attractive young Israeli woman with the slicked back dark hair and smoky dark eyes smiled seductively and slid him back his passport, credit card and a nonstop ticket. Delta Flight 97, leaving Tel Aviv at 1:30
P.M.
local time and landing at Kennedy at 6:45
P.M.
Eastern. That would be the easy part. Getting to Colorado would be the headache.

DIA, of course, was shut down indefinitely. The last flight from Kennedy to Colorado Springs—via American through Dallas-Fort Worth—left at 6:10
P.M.
Eastern, more than a half hour before he’d even be on the ground in New York, much less cleared through Customs and able to get to the domestic terminals. And even if the American flight left late, it was completely booked anyhow. The next commercial flight to Colorado Springs didn’t leave until 5:50 the next morning. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The FAA had just ordered a full ground stop in Colorado—nothing was flying in or out of the state—so all of this was now moot anyway.

Bennett picked up his bags and glanced back at the Delta agent, who caught his eye and winked. He lingered for a moment, then finally convinced himself to go stand in another endless line, this one through security on the way to the passengers-only lounge. As he waited, he fished his cell phone out of his briefcase, speed-dialed McCoy in London, and told her about Iverson’s call. Next, he instructed her to track down the Signature flight support center at La Guardia and charter a private jet to Cheyenne, Wyoming. Get it big and fast and don’t worry about the cost, Bennett told her. And have Carey Limo waiting for him at Kennedy when he arrived. He would be signing all the expense vouchers from now on and this one would be the least of his worries.

Assuming he could clear Customs and get picked up by the car service between eight and eighty-thirty, Bennett figured he could get to La Guardia and meet the jet on the tarmac—engines running, flight plan cleared—sometime between nine and nine-thirty, depending on weather and traffic. He could then be in the air no later than ten o’clock New York time. With a good pilot and a tailwind, he could be on the ground in Cheyenne by midnight local time, maybe twelve-thirty. If he had to rent a car, McCoy told him the drive was about a hundred and eighty miles, or about three hours. If the Colorado State Patrol or the Secret Service could put him in a chopper, he might be able to get to the Springs—or wherever he was going—by one, maybe two in the morning at the latest.

Bennett felt suffocated—unable to think, unable to react, and half a world out of position. But there wasn’t anything more he could do. One step at a time, he told himself, one step at a time.

His name was General Khalid Azziz.

He had served as head of the Iraqi Republican Guard—Saddam Hussein’s elite military machine—since the end of the Gulf War, and no one was more trusted with the president’s personal security or the stability of the regime than he.

As head of Saddam’s intelligence services during the war with Iran in the 1980s, it was Azziz who pressed successfully for funding to build an elaborate and sophisticated maze of steel-and concrete-hardened, bombproof bunkers underneath Baghdad in case such hiding places would ever be needed for the leaders of the regime during war or revolution. Construction began in late 1986 amid various and conflicting public reports that Saddam was launching a massive archeological excavation, building a world-class subway system to rival any such system in the West, or renovating downtown and building a huge new office and shopping complex. By the time U.S. smart bombs began falling from the Baghdad sky like rain on Seattle, the construction was largely complete. But no archeological site, subway system, or commercial complex was ever officially announced, much less opened. And Saddam Hussein had almost effortlessly survived one of the most aggressive bombing campaigns in the history of modern warfare. It didn’t take a rocket scientist for the CIA or Saddam himself to figure out why. And General Azziz emerged as a national hero as a result.

The general was also the man almost singularly responsible for kicking UNSCOM—the United Nations’ Special Commission for finding and destroying all of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction—out of Iraq forever. It had been years since UNSCOM inspectors set foot in the country. It was the general’s job to keep it that way. And to the amazement of his boss—and most of the world—he’d been spectacularly successful.

The most perilous moment of the general’s long career came in the early 1990s, when two top Iraqi nuclear scientists escaped the country and defected to the United States. Operations “Purse Snatcher” and “Glowing Thunder” were both spearheaded by Azziz’s archenemy, Jack Mitchell, and these disasters nearly cost Azziz his life.

Fortunately for the general, one of his lieutenants was able to locate one of the scientists—still in Jordan—and persuade him to come back without harm to see his family. According to the story picked up by the Jordanian intelligence services, when the scientist was finally brought to Azziz, an elaborate feast was prepared, and his wife, seven children, and close relatives were brought to see him.

Everyone was assembled, including President Hussein. It was quite an affair. General Azziz hugged the man, kissed him on both cheeks, and forgave him.

Then—without warning—he drew a pistol and shot the scientist in the face.

Each immediate family member was then individually beheaded in full view of the others by Azziz personally, with a gleaming Persian saber dating back to the fourteenth century.

The screaming and hysterical wife was forced to watch, and was beheaded last. Hussein and Azziz then sat down for the meal of roasted lamb,
couscous,
and
baklava
as the scientist’s numb relatives were forced to mop up. This redeemed the general in the eyes of the nation’s Supreme Leader, and he had once again become Iraq’s most glorious son.

Now, however, Khalid Azziz was again in grave danger. Through careful tracking of Western trade publications and a series of emails from a mole burrowed deep inside the MacPherson Administration,
Mukhabarat
agents had recently picked up the scent of the enormous petroleum deal being hammered out by Galishnikov, Sa’id, and the American president’s alma mater, GSX and the Joshua Fund. Azziz was stunned when he learned the unprecedented magnitude of the deal. His boss went ballistic.

Enraged by the prospect of unprecedented Israeli oil wealth, the destabilizing of OPEC, the obvious sellout by some moderate Palestinians in creating a joint venture with the Israelis, and the intensive involvement of the Americans—both in funding the project and working behind the scenes to persuade the Palestinian leadership to offer their blessings—Saddam Hussein’s instructions were crystal clear:
Shut it down.
There were scores to be settled, and now was the time.

Azziz had been given an operational plan, hand-crafted by Saddam himself. It was as brazen as it was barbaric. Assassinating President MacPherson was just the beginning. The crown jewel would be unleashing “the fury of Allah” on Tel Aviv and New York to send the world a message and to “finish the job” Osama bin Laden had set into motion on September 11, 2001.

The plan was stark—it was all or nothing, kill or be killed, wipe out the Americans and the Israelis or be wiped out forever.

The plan was simple—not easy, but clear, concise, uncomplicated and straightforward.

And the plan was fully funded—immediately.

The best men and the best weapons were being made available for the cause. The critical elements of the plan’s success, of course, were stealth, speed, and surprise.

Now, however, events were already spinning out of control. Azziz’s boss would not be happy. And he was due to brief the Iraqi president in just ten minutes. It was time to set Plan B into motion.

It took Bennett thirty-five minutes to get up to the front of the line.

But it never dawned on him what was coming next.

A single man traveling on a one-way ticket from Israel to New York, and seeking information on flights to Colorado mere hours after an airborne assassination attempt against the President of the United States in Colorado—most likely at the hands of Middle Easterners—set off red flares worthy of the Fourth of July long before Bennett actually handed over his passport, ticket, and boarding pass for inspection.

Even as Bennett was trying to buy his ticket, the Delta agent had typed in an “
alef
” alert—priority one—into her computer and stepped on a small button beside her left foot. This triggered immediate video camera surveillance on Bennett, which the agent could see in the top left-hand corner of her computer screen.

As she seemed to be typing in his passport information, the young woman was actually typing instructions to the video camera behind her to center Bennett in its frame, zoom in, focus, and then “paint” him with an infrared code.

This would now allow him to be tracked by every video camera in the airport, including a highly sophisticated, Israeli-made X-ray camera that could scan his body and his luggage for weapons. It would also allow him to be tracked by every hidden laser-guided microphone in the airport as he made his way through the crowds. All this, in turn, would allow the staff in the central security office deep under the airport to see and hear him at all times.

But that was only the start. The silent alarm also rapidly summoned three undercover security agents to surround Bennett and shadow him without his knowledge. The “
alef
” alert, meanwhile, also began a high-speed computer search for every detail of Jonathan Meyers Bennett’s life through the massive Israeli database, cross-linked with Interpol and the FBI.

The attractive young Israeli woman behind the Delta ticket counter was no typical airline employee. She was actually a counterterrorism specialist for the Shin Bet, Israel’s counterintelligence and internal security agency, roughly equivalent to the U.S. FBI.

When his check-in security “interview” lasted for more than forty-five frustrating minutes, Bennett began losing his patience. His briefcase and garment bags were X-rayed and searched by hand. His toothpaste was squeezed out of its tube to check for plastic explosives. His shaving cream was shaken and sprayed to see if any kind of toxin could be found inside. His cell phone was quickly dismantled and then reassembled, as was his BlackBerry. His laptop computer was carefully scrutinized and his papers rifled through.

The real trouble began, however, when one of the security guards leafed through his address book—under Bennett’s intense protest—and noticed he had the personal home phone numbers and direct office numbers for all of President MacPherson’s most senior advisors.

This now attracted the attention of an American official, whom Bennett guessed probably worked for the FBI or the U.S. Air Marshal program. Bennett was taken out of line, down a hallway, around a corner, out of the sight of other passengers, and down five flights of stairs. There, he passed through a series of security doors, and into one of several interrogation rooms at the far end of a dark, shadowy corridor.

It was a small room. No windows. Pale green painted-brick walls. No clock. No furniture at all, except for one rickety wooden chair in the middle of the filthy white tile floor where a small, used, red-plastic syringe lay in the corner. A single dusty green metal lamp hung from an incredibly long, bare cord from far above him—so far above him that Bennett couldn’t actually see the ceiling.

The room, in fact, appeared to be a tower of some kind. The pale green paint on the walls ended about eight or nine feet up, and from there Bennett could only see thick stones reminiscent of a medieval castle or some ancient Roman ruin. But the shadows and the darkness above made it impossible to see any higher. Bennett was also immediately struck by the temperature. It was hot and steamy, a good twenty to thirty degrees hotter than the already stifling passenger terminal, and the whole place stank of stale cigarettes. He was a long way from the King David Hotel, and Bennett’s anger was rising.

Two stocky, muscular Israeli men in blue jeans and blue blazers slammed Bennett down into the chair, and forced his hands into metal handcuffs that dug sharply into his skin and cut off the circulation to his hands.

“What the hell is this for?” demanded Bennett.

The two men said nothing. Instead, they took up positions by the locked door.

“Hey, hello. I’m an American citizen. I have rights. Now would someone tell me what the hell is going on?”

No one said a word. A third Israeli—shorter, thinner, wearing an impressive charcoal gray Italian-made suit but no tie, and thin, square, gold-rimmed glasses—moved to the far corner of the room opposite the door and lit up a cigarette, but said nothing. The American agent, meanwhile, paced quietly, playing obsessively with a bright red yo-yo.

“Mr. Bennett, why exactly are you so eager to get to Colorado tonight?” he asked, lighting up a cigarette.

“Look, I’ve answered this question nineteen times already.”

The man with the yo-yo stopped behind Bennett, lowered his face behind Bennett’s left ear, and whispered.

“Answer it again.”

Bennett could feel the blood rising through the back of his neck. His ears were getting hot and red. All four armed men could see his reaction, and it did nothing to calm their nerves or cool their suspicions. The mood was darkening quickly, and Bennett struggled to stay calm and navigate a way out.