The Devil's Light (9 page)

Anit waved a hand. “I call it the occupied territories—”

“What you call ‘occupied,'” Sklar interrupted, “is the Jewish land of Samaria and Judea. You would mutilate it with borders of your own devising, telling God's children where they can and cannot live. This is sacrilege.”

Rahal gave him a thin smile. “Your synonym for sanity, it seems. But this much should be clear to anyone—Israel cannot incorporate the Palestinians on the West Bank and survive as a Jewish state. Unless you mean to deny them the right to vote, like the stateless Palestinians confined to refugee camps in Lebanon—”

“‘Stateless,'” Sklar repeated with palpable outrage. “‘Confined'? For over a decade Arafat and the PLO used Lebanon as a launching pad for terrorist attacks on the diminished patch of earth you define as Israel. Only when we attacked them did we eliminate the threat.”

“To what end?” Now Rahal's tone conveyed weariness and disdain.
“The slaughter of Palestinians—some women and children—at Sabra and Shatilah by Christian militia empowered by Ariel Sharon? Caging Palestinians in refugee camps that serve as a breeding ground for hatred? Helping to empower another threat to Israel, the Shia terrorists of Hezbollah, through the indiscriminate bombing of Lebanese civilians? There is
no
end, and all our wars provide none.”

Rahal's quickness of tongue, Brooke perceived, was enhanced by an intensity of manner that seemed close to aerobic—gestures, nods, swift shakes of her head. But he caught something more: Though roughly Brooke's peer in age, she seemed older, grounded in a reality harsher than that of the other women he knew. “Don't mistake me,” she concluded in a level voice, “Israel has real enemies. I'd sacrifice my life for its survival. But our very existence is threatened by a permanent state of war.”

The student audience, Brooke noticed, seemed to pay her rapt attention. Inclining his head toward Ben, he murmured, “The Israelis need a way out of Palestine—”

“War,” Sklar was saying, “is the only sane response to terrorists with no regard for human life. The settlers are the Jewish bulwark, our first line of defense. Would you ask my brother to abandon his home?”

“Yes, some must leave,” Anit acknowledged. “I know this would be a tragedy for your brother. But if Israel wanted protection, the settlements were a grave mistake. Soldiers leave more easily.”

To Brooke, she had captured the nub of the problem—a historic error, maintained through two generations, had placed Jewish families in the way of peace. “Whoever asks us to leave,” Sklar said fiercely, “our duty is to resist them—Jew or Arab. Your belief that Palestinians will honor your betrayal is the pipe dream of a child.” His words came as swift as gunfire. “They mean to kill us all. Arafat can't make peace—his own people would tear him to pieces. Instead they keep on breeding. The most deadly bombs of all are the wombs of Palestinian women. Their children will come for you unless we expel them first.”

“In cattle cars?” Rahal inquired in acid tones. “That's not a pretty image. What destination do you propose?”

Sklar waved a stubby hand. “Australia or Canada. Certainly not the Middle East—even other Arabs can't stomach Palestinians on their land. It's only people like you who haven't noticed.”

With genuine fascination, Brooke watched Rahal control her anger,
the effort bleeding into the chill of her voice. “One notices many things, Jacob, when not listening for the voice of God. One is that the Palestinians aren't going anywhere. You'd make us and them scorpions in a bottle, bent on consuming each other.” She paused, then achieved a calmer air. “There's no safety for Jews in oppressing or expelling others, imposing on Arabs the hardships we've endured for centuries. Our only hope is to create a place where Palestinians have the joys and challenges of a normal life, and the ability to live it. Anything else is doomed.”

Ben's expression, Brooke noted, had become thoughtful and intent. “She's right,” he remarked at length. “The Greater Israel people are on a suicide mission. The question is who goes with them.”

At the end, the audience gave both speakers sustained applause, especially Anit Rahal. Though she nodded in acknowledgment, her eyes did not change. Brooke swore he could read her thoughts—most of the audience were Jewish progressives, and their approval was foreordained; the rest were equally disdainful of Palestinians and of Jews less militant than they. She had debated for an hour and changed no minds. Brooke supposed this was what fatalism looked like on the face of a twenty-five-year-old woman.

Standing apart, Rahal and Sklar lingered on the stage, speaking with whoever approached. “If you don't mind,” Brooke told Ben, “I'd like to talk to her for a minute.”

Ben looked at him sideways. “This is novel. You
are
aware she's Jewish, right?”

“Is that a problem?” Brooke inquired blandly.

“Maybe for her. I just thought your taste ran more to deracinated Gentiles from New England. As previously noted, I've resigned myself to being the honorary uncle of kids with sloping foreheads and defective hips.”

“I'm more venturesome than that, pal. Ms. Rahal has a certain allure.”

Ben grinned. “Beauty isn't everything—yours or hers.
This
woman strikes me as daunting.”

“Nonetheless,” Brook answered with a shrug, “so goes the lemming to the sea.” With that he began a lazy but purposeful stroll in the direction of Anit Rahal.

A claque of admirers still gathered around her. He waited at the outskirts until, at last, they were alone. Rahal looked at him with raised eyebrows; Brooke sensed that she had noticed his presence without seeming to. Extending his hand, he said, “I'm Brooke Chandler.”

Her firm grip came with a querying look. “You sound as if I must know you. Should I?”

Brooke was amused, partly at his own discomfiture. In seconds this woman had nailed a sense of entitlement to which, Ben pointed out, Brooke was sometimes oblivious. “I just thought it was good manners,” he responded. “I also thought you were impressive. Agreeing with what someone says is one thing; respecting how they say it another.”

She nodded briskly. “I should thank you, then. That's good manners, too.”

This woman gave no openings. Hastily, Brooke said, “I'm a grad student in Near Eastern Studies. I was hoping we could sit down sometime. I still have a bit to learn.”

A skeptical smile appeared at one corner of her mouth. “So you're a scholar, in search of quotidian knowledge.”

Caught, Brooke could only laugh. “I thought it was a passable cover story.”

Anit Rahal gave him a long look of appraisal before allowing the smile to curl both sides of her lips. “I prefer honesty,” she said. “You're certainly nice-looking enough. I can spare an hour to find out if you're smart.”

Ben, Brooke thought, would have loved this.

T
hree hours after the emergency meeting, Carter Grey came to Brooke's office, his face seamed and pale. Before Carter could speak, Brooke said bluntly, “Get some rest. You can't last this way.”

Grey shook his head. “We've confirmed the missing bomb through sources in the ISI. The president has started a task force. I'm taking you.”

Standing at once, Brooke went with him to the director's conference room, ready to help if his friend stumbled. Sitting beside Grey, he took in the setting: mahogany walls; photos of former directors; the American flag beside that of the CIA. The room was equipped with secure phones, a bank of computers, televisions monitoring CNN and al Jazeera, and several teleconference screens—a nerve center in crisis. The faint metallic hum in the air, Brooke assumed, was meant to thwart surveillance.

The others were already seated at a long, burnished table. Brooke knew most on sight: Alex Coll, the president's national security advisor; the deputy secretaries of State, Defense, and Homeland Security; the deputy director of the FBI; senior administrators from Immigration and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Among those representing the CIA were Noah Brustein; Ken Sweder of the Counterterrorism Center; Frank Svitek of Operations; senior analyst Michael Wertheimer; and, by teleconference, Carl Holt, the station chief in Islamabad.

Coll ran the meeting. Curtly nodding at the newcomers, he continued speaking to Brustein, “When the president confronted him, the prime minister swore he didn't know. We don't know any more than you've
already guessed. Starting from scratch, our job is to stop whoever took the bomb from using it.”

Coll did not need to embellish this: An act of nuclear terrorism was what any president feared most. The first—and worst—fear was that the bomb was on its way to this city. Still addressing Brustein, he demanded, “How is the agency responding?”

Watching the two men, Brooke reflected on their disparity. Slender and dapper, Coll was a smart and polished infighter, with a fierce ambition to become secretary of state; Brustein cared less about himself than agency and country. “We're calling on all our capabilities,” Brustein said. “Operations, analysis, signals intelligence, counterterrorism, key people from the Near East Division, analysts with expertise in nuclear weapons systems. Our information systems will redirect all data to a central point, so that no critical information slips through the cracks.” Pausing, he inclined his head toward Sweder. “Ken will run this day-to-day, with the assistance of Carter Grey. As to the nature of the search, we're looking for a small group of men with a bomb you can fit in a crate. We won't get much help from satellites. We need to depend on human intelligence: We've alerted our stations around the world to work every relevant source. That's how we'll find this bomb.”

Without comment, Coll faced Carl Hobbs of the FBI. “What if it's coming here?”

Hobbs held out a palm, fingers ticking off his list. “We're accelerating investigations of potential cells. We've alerted our counterterrorism unit. We've assigned anyone we can spare to checking domestic sources. We're coordinating with the DOE's detection team to comb wherever the bomb might be—”

Interrupting, Coll turned to Joseph Farella, deputy secretary of defense. “Any plans to go into Pakistan?”

Farella gave a sidelong glance to Francine Andrews, the poised career diplomat who had become the deputy secretary of state. “We'd need to know where it is,” Farella answered. “Otherwise we're blind men searching for a grain of sand in a country close to nuclear war. We might well destabilize an already weak government.”

“Imagine how destabilized we'll feel,” Coll interjected caustically, “when al Qaeda eliminates New York.” He caught himself, speaking more evenly. “You're right, of course. But we're less than a month from the
tenth anniversary of 9/11. We have to assume this weapon is meant for America.”

Hobbs leaned forward. “That's why we'd like CIA personnel reassigned to a joint task force under our direction. That way they can operate domestically.”

Brooke saw Brustein bridle. Ignoring Hobbs, he said to Coll, “In this last decade every successful prosecution of a terrorist started with leads from us. We can't bring field officers back from overseas—we don't have enough as it is. We need them to work with foreign agents and intelligence agencies.”

“Which ones do you trust?” Coll inquired sharply.

Brustein became expressionless—a method, Brooke divined, of concealing his annoyance. “There's trust, and then there's situational usefulness. We trust the Brits, the Germans, and the Jordanians. They're less likely to leak, and they'll worry the bomb is meant for them—”

“What about the Chinese and the Russians?” asked Francine Andrews. “Both of them have terrorists, and neither wants a nuclear weapon in the hands of al Qaeda or the Chechens. Going to them may be worth the risk.”

In a tone of dispassionate inquiry, Brooke asked, “What about the Iranians?”

Coll's eyebrows shot up. “How do you know they're not behind this?”

“I don't. But suppose they're not. What happens if there's a nuclear catastrophe in the Middle East, and the Iranians get blamed for it? Or their clients, Hezbollah and Hamas? The last thing they'd want is an excuse for the Israelis to flatten them. Israel might not need much of one.”

Coll appraised him. “We don't know each other, do we?”

“Brooke Chandler.” Brooke felt his name and face being filed away. “I work here. I also worked in Iraq and Lebanon. The experience was useful—”

“Brooke's one of our best,” Brustein cut in. Sitting back, Brooke saw Grey smile.

“About the Israelis,” Coll asked Brustein, “what are we doing with them? Or about them?”

“As Brooke suggests,” Brustein answered, “they're worried about Iran and groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, for whom the destruction of Israel is the Holy Grail. Their Middle East network is better than ours, and they'll focus every resource on ensuring their own survival.”

“Nevertheless, do I divine a certain distrust between you and Mossad?”

“The Israelis,” Brustein answered coolly, “have been known to use false information to manipulate us to their own ends. If that doesn't work, they'll try to steal our secrets. We don't even like having Mossad in this building.

“Fear makes them arrogant and aggressive, inclined to overrate themselves—witness their classic blunder in the blockade of Gaza, where they end up killing eleven civilians on a boat allegedly embarked on a humanitarian mission, infuriating the entire world. In turn, they don't think we're as competent or serious. They also believe that anything we do will get leaked to Congress and the media.”

“Imagine that,” Grey remarked sardonically.

“In short,” Brustein continued, “the Israelis will be an immense pain in the ass. Once they get word of this, they'll want to move their people to Langley, get everything we have, and give us as little as possible. They'll also pressure the White House to make them equal partners in the effort.