Firebreak (8 page)

Just watching Shoshana move across the hotel lobby as they met for their dinner engagement excited Mana and he could feel the start of an erection. He willed it to go away as he joined her, exchanging ritualistic small talk. Up close, it was easier to take his eyes off the dress that promised so much. He was certain she was wearing nothing underneath and became even more excited when she entered the backseat of his limousine and flashed a bare leg.

Inside the car, the dress seemed to move over her, outlining her figure and then hiding it away. He was a flustered young man. “I … I hope that you will like the restaurant,” Mana stammered. “It’s a small place, very exclusive, with a quiet garden.”

“It will be fine if we can talk,” she said and reached out and touched the back of his hand. She was following Habish’s instructions to the letter—get him panting and keep him that way. Shoshana felt sorry for Is’al.

The two-block walk from where the van pool dropped Carroll helped break the tension generated by the DIA and the daily grind at Arlington Station. He was relaxing into the peaceful routine of suburban Virginia when he turned up the walk to his house. He waved at his neighbor, a bureaucrat in the Department of the Interior who got off work much earlier, and braced himself. His son, a two-and-a-half-year-old bruiser, flew down the steps and bounced into his arms, demanding to be caught.

“Daddy, do you know what this is?” Brett Carroll challenged. A picture of a red stop sign was clutched in his small hand.

“Looks like a stop sign to me,” Carroll replied. He knew how to hedge his answers.

“It’s an octagon, Daddy.” Condescension was apparent in his voice. He wiggled out of his father’s arms and ran past his mother, off on the important business of two-year-olds.

“He’s into shapes today,” Carroll’s wife told him. Mary Carroll was a tall, slender woman, a former Air Force officer and one of the POWs that Carroll had helped rescue from Iran. She kissed him and they walked arm in arm into the house, talking about the trouble their son had been in during the day. Mary caught the signs immediately that something was bothering her husband. She waited through dinner, knowing he would soon tell her.

Brett finally had run down and, with howls of protest, had been put to bed at seven-thirty. An unusual calm settled over the house. Mary settled onto the couch next to her husband and waited. “Mary,” he began, “I’ve got a problem …” When he finished talking through his conversation with the general, his wife sat for a minute, studying the problem and her husband’s face.

“Bill, you don’t have to leak it if you can back-door it to someone upstairs. I have an old friend who might know someone who can help. Why not talk to her?”

“If I get caught off base, they’ll crunch my head big-time. That means the end of this.” He looked around the room, thinking about Brett and their home. It was a good life. “But Cox thinks this is important.”

“Why doesn’t he do it? Why pass it off on you?”

“The general is too well-known, too controversial, too proIsraeli,” Carroll answered. “If he leaks it to anyone, they’ll either name him as their source or disregard it, figuring he’s grinding some ax. But I trust him.”

Mary sighed and stared across the room. She didn’t want to put her home, her family, in jeopardy. Lower-ranking officers got stepped on hard when they played outside the established rules. Then she rose and walked to the phone, her decision made.

Two hours later, Bill Carroll was sitting in a parked car, telling what he knew to Melissa Courtney-Smith.

“I love the beach at night,” Shoshana said, slipping off her shoes. She almost lost her balance and stumbled into Mana. “Sorry. Too much wine.”

He smiled at her and took off his shoes. “I’ve never done this before. It’s just like in the movies.” Shoshana took his hand and led him down to the water’s edge. The dinner had been everything Mana had promised and, much to her dismay, she found she liked the Iraqi. He was shy, eager to please, and so unsure of himself—just like so many Israeli boys she knew. That’s it, she decided, he’s still a boy. Habish’s warning about Arabs reverting to type in their own country came back to her.

“Come on then,” she said and pulled him into the water.

“Rose,” Mana said. “You said you worked for an insecticide company in California.” They were walking through the gentle lapping surf.

“Oh, Is’al, please don’t talk business. I’m only a scheduler and just tell the plant foreman when to run a batch, how much, and where to ship it to.” She reeled off some of the details Habish had given her to memorize about her cover story. “It’s boring.”

“You know I also am in the chemical industry.” She could feel him looking at her, his brown eyes pleading. “I thought we might have much in common.”

She leaned against his arm, letting him feel her breasts. “We do.” She gave him a low laugh, full of promise. “But let’s not talk about business. It’s almost light. Please walk me back to the hotel.”

The concierge on duty ignored them when they walked across the hotel lobby to the elevator. “It’s all right,” Shoshana assured him. “Be natural. Relax.” She was amused by how proper he was trying to act. He had even put on his shoes before entering the hotel. Inside the elevator, she gave him a kiss, aware that even barefoot, she was taller than he. “That’s nice,” she said. “I like the way you kiss.” She rubbed against him, feeling his erection. The elevator stopped and he drew back, blushing furiously that they might be seen in an embrace. “Oh, come on,” she laughed, taking him by the hand down the deserted hall.

Outside her door, she fumbled for her key, let one of the gown’s straps fall off her shoulder, and deliberately dropped the key. “Oh,” she whispered and bent to pick it up. The low-cut dress opened provocatively and she could hear him breathe more rapidly. She stood and opened the door before turning to him, again brushing against his chest. “Thank you for a lovely evening,” she said, putting her arms around his neck and pressing against him. She gave him a long and leisurely kiss and felt him respond. She pulled back, ran her right hand down his chest and pulled a shirt button loose. She reached in and stroked his chest as she kissed him again, her tongue into his mouth.

Then she rubbed up against him and again, her fingers moved down his shirt, almost accidentally dropping lower. As she did, she felt his erection pulse through the fabric and saw a stricken look in his eyes. A premature ejaculation. Mana stood there, not knowing what to do. Suddenly, she hated what she was doing. “Come inside,” she told him. “You can use my bathroom.” She caught a glimpse of Habish watching them through a slightly opened door down the hall.

Time to get rid of the bimbo, Thomas Fraser thought as he watched the young woman go through the motions of making coffee. But, damn, she’s good in the sack. Fraser settled into an elegant wing chair, appreciating the expensive, immaculate apartment. This place is too classy for her, he decided, no reason for me to keep her here.

The President’s chief of staff was a very contented man, enjoying the prerogatives of power and money. A buzz at the door chased any pleasant thoughts away and brought him back to reality.

The woman checked the TV monitoring the hall and gathered her peignoir around her. “It’s your chauffeur,” she said.

“Well, open the goddamn door.” He didn’t care that her wrap was almost transparent. She did as he ordered.

“Mr. Fraser,” his driver said, “I got a call from the office on the car telephone looking for you. They say you haven’t been answering your page and need you immediately.”

“Who called?”

“Don’t know, sir. A woman.”

“Probably Courtney-Smith,” he growled, searching for his pager. He found it under the couch where he had kicked it when the girl had teasingly undressed him the night before. “Goddamn it!” he roared, blaming the young woman. “You stupid bitch, why were you screwing around with my page? Get out and be long gone before I get back.”

Well, he decided as he waddled to the elevator, that solves one problem.

Melissa Courtney-Smith was standing by at her desk holding a neatly assembled file when Fraser burst into his office in the west wing of the White House. It was 7:58 in the morning and he was two minutes early. “What the hell’s happening?” he shouted.

“The President,” Melissa calmly replied, “called for a meeting at eight o’clock in the Situation Room with the National Security Council.”

Fraser grabbed the file and bolted from the office, furious that a meeting had been scheduled without his consent. “Why wasn’t I told?” he snapped.

“We’ve been trying to contact you for an hour,” she said, easily matching his pace down the steps to the basement.

“What shit has hit what fan?” he demanded.

“Sorry, sir,” she lied, “the President doesn’t confide in me.” Melissa had slipped a one-page memo from Bill Carroll into Pontowski’s read file the night before. She had attached a note saying she thought he would be interested and initialed it with her distinctive “M.” The President rose early every morning and read the file while he took his first cup of coffee. At seven o’clock, Zack Pontowski had walked into her office, handed her the memo and ordered the meeting for eight o’clock. She ran the memo through the shredder at her desk.

Fraser was the last person to enter the room and the Marine guard closed the door behind him. Inside the windowless fifteen-by twenty-foot room with the President, Fraser switched to a calm and genial personality. “Sorry, Mr. President, I just heard. Got to give my staff credit for tracking me down so fast.” It was what President Pontowski would have wanted to hear.

“Glad you made it, Tom. Okay, gentlemen, I want to take a hard look at what’s happening in the Middle East. I’m seeing things that disturb me and I don’t want to be caught by something coming at us from out in left field. We may have to work out some new policy initiatives.”

The director of central intelligence exchanged a puzzled look with the national security adviser, the man who headed the National Security Council. Neither of them was aware of any unusual activity in the Middle East. Still, the President had sent them a distinct signal that he was worried. Why else the hastily called meeting? Since the DCI was the overseer and coordinator of all United States intelligence functions, he took the lead. “Sir, we haven’t monitored anything unusual or threatening. Our analysts are on top of it. Perhaps if you could tell us what’s bothering you …”

“I want to know exactly what’s going on between the Syrians and Egyptians,” Pontowski told him. “I suspect there’s more to that mutual assistance treaty … I want to know if Iraq is a player … We’ve worked too hard to create a stable Iraq and deny them any significant military capability … And I would like some answers by this afternoon.”

The secretary of state chimed in. “Our observer at the negotiations reports all is in good order.” Pontowski only looked at him. The secretary got the message. “I’ll cable him to start digging and get his staff in gear.”

Fraser’s jaw was rigidly clamped and he worked not to grind his teeth. Nothing, he raged inwardly, was happening in the Middle East to warrant this much attention. Or was something going on he didn’t know about? Who had gotten to him? What were his sources? Don’t get paranoid, he cautioned himself. Pontowski does read three or four newspapers every morning. Maybe he stumbled onto something there. Rather than betray his irritation, Fraser decided to cool it and let others take the lead until he could control the situation.

Admiral Scovill, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, caught Pontowski’s attention. “Sir, I’ll get the DIA over here and find out what they’ve got. If there’s anything unusual going on, they’ll know.”

“Oh come off it,” the director of central intelligence protested. “The Defense Intelligence Agency gets its information from the CIA and the NSA. What would they have that’s so damn unusual? And if they’ve found something, why haven’t we all seen it?”

“Good question,” the admiral answered. “Let’s shake the tree and see what falls out.” A warning kept tickling at the back of his mind that the Middle East was going to become unhinged again. The admiral had played a key part in the logistics buildup that helped force Iraq out of Kuwait and had later counseled that the drawdown of forces from Saudi Arabia following the successful conclusion of the war, leaving only a small trip-wire force in Kuwait and massive military stockpiles in the Saudi desert, was premature. But the current Iraqi government had sent strong signals through the CIA that they would live in peace with their neighbors. The strength of the CIA’s endorsement suggested that the “boys from up the river” had an insider’s knowledge of what was going on. The United States and the world were all too ready to abandon the shifting political sands of the Middle East deserts for the safe bedrock of domestic politics. Situation normal, Admiral Scovill thought, all fucked up.

Fraser looked up as if he had received a sudden inspiration. “Mr. President, is there some person you’d like to talk to, a recognized expert in the field?” Maybe there’s a clue there, he thought.

Pontowski shook his head and stood up. Every eye was on him as he paced the room, a sure sign that he was upset. “I want peace in the Middle East,” he said, his voice controlled and gentlemanly. “The surest way to bring that about is to create stability and prosperity in the region. That’s why I’m so hopeful about the Syrian-Egyptian moves toward mutual assistance. With stability and prosperity, we can encourage all the parties, and that included Israel and Iraq, to sit down and hammer out a solution to their problems. But until they do sit down and talk, we’ve got to protect any progress that’s been made toward that goal or we’re right back to square one. But I’m not so foolish as to forget that when Syrians and Egyptians got together in 1973 they started the Yom Kippur War. I don’t want that happening again.”

The DCI folded his hands and spoke quietly. “There is a degree of uncertainty that we have to live with when dealing with Arabs, and I might add, the Israelis. I’m referring, of course, to the Israelis’ recent scientific tests in the Kalahari Desert with the South Africans.”