The Glory (86 page)

In the crush of visitors headed out of the chamber afterward through lines of soldiers and police, Danny and Ruti went by
Amos Pasternak, stationed at a staircase and surveying the scene with a cold commanding eye. Amos gave the willowy Ruti a
brief wave and a fetching grin.

“How well do you know him?” Danny inquired.

“Amos Pasternak? Oh, not well.”

“He seems to like you.”

“Him? I think he likes them older.” The bitter twist of Ruti’s mouth would have suited a woman of forty.

Not far behind them in the slow-moving crowd, Yael said to Max Roweh, “Why are you so quiet?”

“Am I?”

“You haven’t said a word for a quarter of an hour.”

Roweh drily laughed. “I’m trying to come to terms with a very strange thought, Yael, which may be nonsense, but then again,
may be the truth.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s just that of all the unusual turns in Zionist history, this is the most unusual — that Islam may have produced a new
Saladin, a Saladin of world peace.”

After six years, Zev Barak was once more en route to Washington, because Moshe Dayan had decided he wanted somebody along
who wasn’t burned out, angry, and stale at this next-to-last stage of the tortuous Camp David negotiations. The first meeting
at Camp David in September 1978, inconclusive and at times stormy, had produced tentative “Accords”; but peace between enemies
who have warred for decades is no simple business when a conqueror is not dictating the terms, and since Sadat’s flight to
Jerusalem more than a year of the harshest wrangling had by now intervened. Foreign Minister Dayan, the former world hero,
in disfavor at home and discredited even in his own party for serving in Begin’s cabinet, had been at the center of the risky
abrasive dealings throughout; and he was returning with some reluctance to Camp David for yet another go-around with Sadat’s
Foreign Minister.

His old confidant Sam Pasternak could not very well come, being a Knesset member. Sam had suggested Zev Barak, and Dayan had
at once telephoned him at Rafael. Before his abrupt departure, Barak had tried to call Emily Halliday at the old McLean house,
for he knew her father had died and she had gone there from Paris to settle his affairs. But she had never been in.

It was a rough flight through the February weather over the North Atlantic. Even Dayan, who could sleep through anything,
was tossing and muttering in his recliner. They were alone in the upper cabin, and as the El Al captain tried to climb above
the towering thunderheads, and the jumbo jet wallowed and plunged like a rowboat in surf, Barak’s eyes began to hurt after
too much reading of the voluminous Camp David documents. He buzzed for the stewardess. “Is a scotch and soda possible?”

“Possible, why not?” She staggered down the spiral staircase.

He was sipping the scotch and hanging on to an armrest, his seat belt as tight as he could pull it, when he heard Dayan say,
“So, can you make anything of all that bumf?” The Foreign Minister was sitting up and rubbing his face with both hands.

“Well, Minister, I can see the problem with Article Six. It’s deadly. How can the Americans possibly support the Egyptian
position?”

“What are you drinking?”

“Scotch and soda.”

“Not the best thing for my ulcer.” He rang for the stewardess, who almost fell into his lap as he ordered sherry. “Zev, I
dozed off thinking of the first time you and I flew to America together. Remember that?”

“I do indeed. Dutch charter plane for transporting racehorses, us sleeping on mattresses, and Mickey Marcus’s coffin chained
to the deck in a reek of horse shit.”

“Thirty-one years,” said Dayan, lying back with an arm over his eyes.

Mickey Marcus!

I’m living through a light-year of history, Barak thought. When he had been Colonel Marcus’s aide back in 1948, peace with
Egypt had seemed fully as unlikely as men walking on the moon. A bullet in his elbow during the fight for the Jerusalem road
had put Zev out of combat, so Ben Gurion had assigned him to Marcus, the Jewish West Point graduate who knew no Hebrew, and
for that matter not much war, either. Marcus was a civilian lawyer, his army experience limited to some reserve staff work
in World War II, but B.G., enthralled by Marcus’s West Point credentials, had entrusted him with command of the Jerusalem
front; and in the end, because he couldn’t speak a Hebrew password, he had got himself shot by a sentry. So it was that Dayan
and Barak had accompanied his body to the United States for a hero’s interment at West Point, and Barak had glimpsed for the
first time the New York skyscrapers, the mighty Hudson River, and a twelve-year-old brat named Emily Cunningham, now in her
forties. Lately she had stopped sending pictures of herself in her letters. Why? Was she becoming fat or wrinkled or gray,
or all three? Didn’t she realize how little that would matter to him?

Cut the wandering thoughts, here comes the stewardess with Dayan’s sherry. Back to the Camp David papers, and that impossible
Article Six …

The stewardess wobbled to Dayan with a little wine in a highball glass. “I hope you don’t mind, Minister,” she said with a
worshipful look. “Just to make sure it doesn’t spill.”

“Very sensible, thank you.” Dayan sipped. “B’seder, Zev. Let’s say I’m Cyrus Vance, the American Secretary of State. Go ahead,
convince me not to support the Egyptians on Article Six.”

Barak glanced toward the stewardess. Without a word she slipped away down the staircase. “I’ll try. What’s the key phrase
in these minutes, Minister?” He tapped the pile of papers in his lap. “
‘Priority of obligation’
?”

“Yes, priority of obligation.”

“All right.” Barak assumed a pseudo-Dayan crisp manner. “Secretary Vance, unless Article Six gives us priority of obligation,
the deal breaks down, and Israel can’t sign.”

Amused, Dayan played along with Vance-like dignity. “Sorry, I truly don’t see that. Why not?”

“Very simple, sir. Egypt has treaties with the other Arab countries to enter any defensive war against Israel —”

“Well, what of that? That’s her legitimate right, isn’t it?”

“Mr. Vance,
any
war Arabs start can be called a defensive war. Why, even on Yom Kippur they claimed our navy attacked Egypt first and —”

“Good, Zev.” Dayan nodded and smiled. “My very words to Vance. I also reminded him that after their October sixth success
they laughed that off as a
‘strategic deception.’
But go ahead, ‘Secretary Vance’ is listening with both ears.”

“And therefore, Mr. Secretary, it’s imperative that this treaty be a binding obligation on Egypt,
taking precedence over all other treaties
. Otherwise it’s an empty piece of paper.”

“I can’t say I agree.” Formal Vance voice. “In effect, you’re questioning the good faith of Egypt. You’re requiring her to
sign a guarantee that she
won’t
act in bad faith. That’s insulting.”

“Secretary Vance, I admire your great political and diplomatic achievements, but you’re new to the Middle East.”

Dayan crookedly laughed. “Well done. I can hint that, but I can’t say it.”

Almost as though taking off, the plane passed from groaning and bouncing to a smooth climb. Glancing out the window, Barak
said, “Well, well, stars and a moon. The storm’s still swirling below down there.”

Dayan lay back on the recliner, hands clasped behind his head. “All right, you’ve got that picture. That’s the worst of it,
but there are a hundred other disputed items, some of them dangerous snags. This trip had better settle everything, because
Sadat’s advisers would really rather sabotage the treaty, and they’ll succeed if we don’t get it signed soon.”

D
riving from Camp David to Washington in a sunny afternoon, Emily detoured toward Middleburg and turned off into a winding
side road to the Foxdale School. The car began to slip and slide on frozen puddles. “This may not be such a great idea,” said
Barak, clutching the door handle.

“Relax, puss, I’ve driven over ice on these roads a thousand times.” She twisted the wheel violently. The car took a curve
broadside, scraping a snowcapped mailbox with a screech of metal. “I swear, these damn mailboxes,” exclaimed Emily, fighting
the wheel. “Always right in the middle of the damn road.”

She had not changed all that much recently, he was thinking. Same nervy lovely Queenie. More gray in her hair, face rounder,
figure a bit more curvaceous. No reason to stop sending pictures, but he understood, she was Quccnie.

“Em, did you telephone ahead to Foxdale?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Look, love, when I picked you up at Camp David it just occurred to me that the school’s on our way back. The headmistress
used to run the English department. She’s a fluttery type, and if I called her she’d fly apart at the seams.” They were driving
through sunlit rolling woods and farmland blanketed with fresh snow. “Isn’t this lovely? I do miss Virginia in the winter.
Paris is so glum. Rain, rain, rain.”

“Camp David’s like this.” He was wearing the blue wind-breaker with the presidential seal. “Sort of snowed in, hard to get
around, but beautiful.”

“Is that meeting going well?”

“No. Very badly. Bargaining with Arabs through Americans is a weird business.”

“Can you tell me about it?”

“Too complicated and technical.”

“I see. As Bud used to say,
‘Don’t bother your pretty little head.’
Well, we’re almost there. Two more turns and over the bridge. We’ll have a look-in at the Growlery for auld lang syne, and
then on to McLean. Bud’s bringing the real estate agent at five. There’s plenty of time.”

As they went across the narrow bridge spanning the creek, Emily exclaimed, “My God, it’s gone.”

“What, the Growlery? You’re crazy, it’s up there beyond those pine trees.”

“Don’t I know where it was? You could
see
it through the trees. I tell you it’s gone, Zev, gone.” She stopped near the gate at the top of the hill. Where the Growlery
had been there was a white expanse of fenced-in tennis courts, smooth with untrodden snow. “Oh God, what a letdown! Why did
you let me come here? Why didn’t you argue? It’s
always
a lousy idea to chase the past.”

“Not when Queenie’s in the past,” said Barak.

That made her laugh tearfully and kiss his cheek. “Well, they can’t level the Growlery in our memories,” she murmured, “and
put in tennis courts, can they?”

“It’ll always be there, Queenie, fireplace, wagon wheel, and all. Just as it was, till we die.”

“Lamartine’s
‘Le Lac.’
” Her voice was husky.
“Ils ont aimés.”

“Just so, darling.
Ils ont aimés
.”

She slammed the gearshift into reverse. “Let’s get the hell out of here.” They were back on the highway before she spoke again.
“I have something for you at the house. It was in an old file in Chris’s desk.”

“What is it?”

“A memo to Admiral Redman at the CIA. The cover page says
Subject: The Sacred Region
. The date’s 1956, and the paper’s gone all yellow. On his deathbed he remembered that you once asked for it, and told me
to send it to you. So help me, he was clearheaded to the end.”

In the plowed-out driveway of the McLean house two tracks of deep footprints led from a small car to the house. “Rats, they’re
early,” said Emily. “Good thing Bud’s got a key. I’m showing the house to a hot prospect. Agent for an Iranian businessman,
who got out just before Khomeini came in.”

Halliday was in the living room with a rotund little bespectacled man wearing big galoshes. It was freezing in the house,
and they still had on their coats.

“Hello, there, Mr. Thompson, the place is mighty dusty and dreary,” Emily said to the agent, gesturing around at the covered
furniture, the sheeted piano, the drawn curtains. “I’ve just been camping out in one room upstairs. My father didn’t really
live in the house in the last years, he haunted it.”

“Oh, it’s spacious and elegant,” said the real estate agent, with a polite cringe. “One sees that right away. Gracious living.
They don’t build them like this anymore.”

“Well, guys, while I give him the tour,” said Emily, “you’ll find some Jack Daniel’s in that sideboard.” She led the agent
upstairs.

“Good to see you, Barak,” said Halliday. “You know that we’re releasing the first F-16s to Israel?”

“What? We’re not due to get them for three years yet.”

“You weren’t, but this Khomeini fellow cancelled the Shah’s order for more than a hundred of them, so you move up on the delivery
schedule. Decision made today.”

“My God, that’s wonderful news.”

“Yep. Your boys will be coming over soon to train in them, and they’ll love the F-16. The Phantom’s a big Mack truck, a great
machine, but you have to fly it hands-on a hundred percent of the time. The F-16’s a light racing car, great range, a honey.”
He was at the sideboard, pouring. “Bourbon, Barak?”

“I’d better not.”

“Well, cheers. Say, let me ask you something about the Yom Kippur War. It’s been on my mind for years. Weren’t you caught
by surprise because you figured the Arabs would never attack, since you had atom bombs?”

Barak’s response was swift and chill. “There’s been no confirmation whatever at any time that my country has unconventional
weapons.”

“Look, even the Egyptians talked to us about it. Your ‘basement bomb,’ they called it.”

“General Halliday, any Israeli leader who’d rely on such weapons — if we had them — to keep us out of war would be an imbecile.
A first use of a nuclear weapon since Hiroshima would be the end of Israel.”

“Mm.” Halliday nodded and drank. “I’ve been hooted down at the Pentagon, but I say Sadat started the war counting on your
not
using them, for the exact reason you just gave. He felt his time was running out, he figured the whole region would go nuclear
sooner or later, and mutual deterrence would freeze the status quo. He attacked to get back the Sinai at any cost, even defeat.
And this treaty, whatever it costs him with the other Arabs, will do it. He broke their front, and he got beat, and still
his attack is paying off.”