The Last Jihad (21 page)

“One of those roads splits off to Syria, doesn’t it, Burt?” asked Kirkpatrick.

“It does. But the Syrians insist nothing’s come their way either.”

“Do we believe them?”

“We checked with the Israelis,” answered Mitchell. “They’ve got—well, let’s just say they’ve got assets nearby, and they say no convoy has come through there.”

“What about the U.N.? What are they saying?” asked Paine.

“The U.N. mission in Amman says they haven’t heard a peep from their team in the last few days. They put in an inquiry, but haven’t heard back yet from the Iraqi Foreign Ministry. And none of their team speaks Farsi.”

“What are you guys trying to say?” asked the president.

Bennett could tell the president was genuinely worried now.

“Sir, there are a couple of possibilities,” said Mitchell. “The first is that the Iraqis are sending another covert terrorist team into the desert to secretly cross into Jordan somewhere, either to attack the Hashemite Kingdom—the king and queen themselves, perhaps—or onto the West Bank and then Israel to make a move on Prime Minister Doron.”

“What do the Jordanians say?”

“Honestly, my call to their intelligence chief was the first he’d heard of it.”

“What about the Israelis?” the president pressed.

“Well, sir, now that’s a horse of a different color. Three military helicopters lifted off one of their secret bases in the Negev several hours ago. One of our satellites picked up the liftoff. Originally, we thought they were heading on a recon mission into Saudi Arabia. They do it all the time, so we didn’t think much of it. But then one of our experts looked at the image more carefully. Barry, can y’all put the image up on the screen?”

The president looked up to the video screen on the wall and strained to see what was coming into focus, as did Bennett.

“Holy…”

“I don’t believe this,” added the VP.

“Tell me for sure what I’m looking at, Jack,” insisted the president. “I don’t want to jump to conclusions—but that sure looks like a helicopter full of commandos.”

“You got it, sir. You’re looking at the top of two American-built Apaches and one Sikorsky heading across the Gulf of Eilat at about a hundred feet off the water.”

“Why?”

“One Apache and I’d say they’re doing recon. Two Apaches and I’d say they’re taking someone or something out.”

“And the Sikorsky, Jack?”

“Well, sir. That’s what makes it interesting. I think they’re planning on bringing something or someone back home with them. That’s what worries me.”

“So what does that mean?”

Mitchell took a deep breath. Bennett glanced at McCoy, who looked as grim as he’d ever seen her. The president rubbed his chin and made eye contact with the VP, then Kirkpatrick. Then he turned back up to Mitchell.

“Well, Jack?”

“Sir, I don’t think we’re looking at Iraqi terrorists. Mr. President, I believe we’re looking at some kinda Iraqi missile operation, under the cover of a U.N. relief truck.”

“So—assuming that’s true for a moment—why wouldn’t the Israelis run in a Scud-busting mission? You know, just send in a couple of jets or Apaches to blow them to smithereens?”

Mitchell said nothing. Bennett looked at Black, then around the room, not understanding what was happening. The president said nothing. He just leaned forward, waiting for Mitchell to answer.

“Jack?”

“Mr. President?”

It was Kirkpatrick. The president looked over at her screen.

“What? Why don’t they just take out the Scud—or whatever it is?”

“There’s only one possible explanation, Mr. President,” Kirkpatrick said slowly.

The president waited. Bennett looked at Tucker Paine. He obviously hadn’t a clue. Neither did the AG, for that matter. But from the looks of things, Burt Trainor knew. Mitchell obviously knew, as did Kirkpatrick. McCoy gently squeezed Bennett’s hand under the table. She knew, too. Surprised but grateful, Bennett squeezed back.

“Sir, the Israelis must believe that whatever it is, it’s too risky to destroy.”

Just the way Kirkpatrick said it made the color instantly drain from Bennett’s exhausted face. He suddenly felt cold and clammy and scared—like the moment he’d looked into the eyes of the scar-faced man in that cell in the Israeli airport and seen the foreshadowing of his own imminent death.

“Too risky?” pressed the president. “What are you trying…no…you don’t think…”

The president froze. He looked pale and nauseated.

What?
Bennett silently screamed.
What are they talking about?
Now the president had figured it out.
Was someone going to say it?
He didn’t dare ask. Not now. Not after Kirkpatrick lowered the boom on him. Desperate, he looked at the vice president—his worn and aging face now ashen. The vice president was looking straight into the haunted, frozen eyes of his mentor and friend, President James Michael MacPherson. And a shudder ran through Bennett’s body.

“The Israelis,” the Vice President of the United States said quietly, “now believe Iraq is about to use a weapon of mass destruction.”

Bennett contemplated the horror of that statement for a moment, as did they all.

“What’s the worst-case scenario?” asked the president. “Lay it out for me.”

No one wanted to take that question, and it hung there in the air for a moment while they all processed the nightmare unfolding before them.

“Could be chemical,” the VP added. “Could be biological—anthrax…Sarin…mustard gas…Ebola…or…”

His voice trailed off. Each was too hideous to truly imagine. Then all eyes suddenly shifted back to MacPherson.

“Or,” said the president, “it could be worse…”

He didn’t finish his sentence, but he didn’t have to. The entire National Security Council team knew what he was thinking, and was thinking it themselves. Even Bennett got it now. Iraq was about to go nuclear.

The “four horsemen of the apocalypse” had arrived.

They came in by way of Kievsky Station, one of eight major train stations in Moscow, handling more than two and a half million people arriving daily. Each took a separate cab as they left from the Square of Kievsky Terminal—
Ploshchad Kievskogo Vokzala
—on the banks of the Moskva River, near the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But sure enough, they all wound up at the same place, in this case the Hotel National.

Constructed in 1903 by the renowned Russian architect Alexander Ivanov, at a then-staggering cost of one million
rubles
, the historic landmark could boast of having been home both to the first Soviet government, in 1918, and to Vladimir Lenin. Lenin actually resided for a time in Room 107, until he moved into the Kremlin itself, just across the boulevard on Red Square.

Completely renovated between 1991 and 1995 when Royal Meridien purchased the property, the Hotel National was now one of city’s most luxurious and expensive hotels. Four massive white marble statues of Greek gods greeted guests in the foyer. The sumptuous Moscovsky restaurant offered the best
borscht
and beef
Stroganoff
in town. And wonderful live piano music seemed to perpetually emanate from the Alexandrovsky Bar—a gorgeous greenhouse structure with a pitched, tentlike glass ceiling, natural light, and lush trees and bushes inside and out—often packed with businessmen and tourists until the wee hours of the morning.

But the “four horsemen” didn’t care about the hotel’s look. They cared about its location, overlooking Tverskaya Street and the pale yellow Kremlin buildings. They quickly checked into four adjoining suites reserved months before, then seemed to do nothing but leave CNN on, all day, every day. They didn’t make calls. They didn’t order room service. They never even ventured out into the hotel’s public areas, much less outside the building. They seemed content to settle in. And they forced those trailing them to do the same.

The problem for their tails was that they were at a severe disadvantage. All of the eavesdropping equipment once built into the hotel’s walls by the KGB had been removed by the new owners. And with high-paying guests occupying all two hundred twenty-four rooms, the best the surveillance team could do was play the part of room-service waiters, housekeepers, and fellow tourists. So the agents discreetly infiltrated the building while their team leader took up residence in the management’s state-of-the art security center in the basement and called back to Langley for instructions. They had these guys surrounded and in their sights. Now all they needed was clearance to take them down.

It had better not be them again.

Marcus Jackson’s SkyTel satellite pager went off with an infuriating series of high-pitched squeals just as he’d finally fallen asleep. He cursed and fumbled in the darkness for his glasses, the light switch and his stupid pager, the bane of his existence, the omnipresent electronic leash that tied him 24/7/365 to his editors in New York.

It was almost three o’clock Friday morning back on the East Coast. Two of his editors had already wrestled with him over this story most of the night before finally putting the paper—and him—to bed. Couldn’t everyone just let him get a few measly hours of sleep? There were other reporters on the payroll. Let them show a little elbow grease. He’d just scooped the world on the biggest story since the attacks and the banner headlines in this morning’s
New York Times
would reflect his coup: “U.S. Prepares For Massive, Imminent Retaliation; Sources Finger Saddam As Iraq Shoots Down 3 U.S. Planes; President’s Injuries Far Worse Than Previously Known.” There’s no rest for the wicked, Jackson concluded.

After the events of the past few days, the White House correspondent was physically and emotionally spent, bone tired and desperately missing his wife and twin girls. He had actually just crawled into bed and turned out the lights several hours earlier—just after nine o’clock Colorado time—when the president’s National Security Advisor called him with the scoop.

Then came the urgent page from White House Press Secretary Chuck Murray. Followed by a brief call from the president’s personal physician. Followed by a fax from the White House Situation Room. Followed by a call from a high-ranking source at CIA—a top aide to Mitchell—arranged by Kirkpatrick, giving him deep background on the administration’s latest thinking on Iraq’s apparent involvement in the attacks.

Jackson finally found his glasses and silenced his pager. It wasn’t New York. It was Murray—“911.” He fumbled for the light switch, then stumbled into the bathroom where his two cell phones were turned off and recharging. He grabbed one, powered it up and speed-dialed Murray’s personal cell phone. Murray picked up instantly.

“Chuck, it’s Marcus,” Jackson said mechanically, his body, mind, and soul still essentially asleep.

“Gambit’s moving—you’ve got ten minutes.”

“What? Why? Where we going?” asked Jackson, suddenly alert with a burst of adrenaline.

“Can’t say. Just get packed and get to the lobby—ASAP.”

“Why? What’s the rush?”

“I can’t, Marcus. Not now. Meet the press pool out front. Bus leaves in ten minutes. Air Force One leaves in fifteen. No exceptions.”

Officially, they didn’t exist.

For nearly six years, this crack team had trained for this exact moment. Along the way they’d been code-named “GhostCom.” If they made the slightest mistake, that would actually be true. Thus the nickname, “Ghost Commandos,” given to them by the prime minister himself.

Phase One of the special forces mission was now complete. “Operation Ghost Lightning” was a smashing success. The Iraqi Scud missile operators were neutralized and the missile—the “snow cone,” as it was called—had been “iced,” carefully secured and delivered back to the top-secret Israeli military base known affectionately as the “Carnival.”

Now Phase Two—“Operation Ghost Buster”—was about to begin, and its success was far from assured. An elite team of twenty-seven Israeli missile designers, bomb squad specialists, nuclear scientists, and chemical and biological weapons experts huddled nervously in a specially designed “operating room” several hundred feet under the Negev desert. They had one mission, and ten more minutes to complete it. Then the prime minister would call, and all hell would break loose.

General Azziz struggled not to hyperventilate.

Things weren’t going as planned and he needed hard, accurate intelligence immediately. It was almost eleven in the morning in Baghdad. An entire night and most of the morning were gone and Saddam Hussein expected to hear of a successful attack on Tel Aviv by now.

Moreover, he was demanding the personal presence of General Azziz to explain what was going wrong. There was just one problem. Azziz had no idea what was going wrong. Nor was he entirely sure something
had
gone wrong.

True, as of yet, no attack on Israeli had transpired. True, Kamal and his men had not checked in. But Azziz was loath to phone his team—Q17—or send planes or helicopters out to find them. Not yet. It was too big a risk. What if they were just having some technical problems with the rocket, easily and quickly fixed? What if they were hiding from a Jordanian or Israeli or U.S. recon scouting expedition? What if the tractor-trailer had broken down and they were in the midst of repairing it? Many things could have gone wrong and many things could still go right. This mission was too valuable—too decisive—to screw up or pull the plug now.

Azziz knew he had more rockets, including his “crown jewel.” But how quickly should he deploy them? It was daylight. The strategic element of surprise was lost for another ten hours or so. Worse, it might have been lost forever. Tel Aviv was supposed to be reeling. The world was supposed to be gasping. The Israelis and Americans were supposed to be thinking twice about retaliating. Now what?

His real problem, however, was far more immediate. For Azziz knew that neither an Israeli nor an American attack was the most immediate threat to his own personal survival. Saddam Hussein was. He needed solutions—and he needed them fast.

It was cold and wet and nasty.

The gleaming green-and-white Marine One helicopter, illuminated by floodlights, was ready to go on one of three pads outside the tunnel from Cheyenne Mountain. Two other Marine transport choppers were ready and waiting, as six Apaches circled and F-16s streaked by overhead. Air Force MPs in full battle gear created a perimeter around the helipads and nearby parking lot, and Agent Sanchez radioed each of her team members for one final check. All systems go.

“All clear, Mr. President,”
shouted Sanchez above the deafening roar of the choppers.
“You ready, sir?”

“I am. You, Football, Jon, Erin, and Deek come with me,”
the president shouted back from the confines of his wheelchair.
“Put my medical team and the rest of your guys in Choppers Two and Three.”

“You got it, sir,”
Sanchez responded.
“Let’s do it.”

Sanchez and her agents moved the president first, carefully lifting him off the ground, locking his wheelchair where his usual seat had been removed, and rapidly closing the bulletproof side door. With Gambit secure and Sanchez sitting in the seat behind him, another agent came back and quickly led Bennett, McCoy and the military aide nicknamed Football—the one carrying the briefcase with the nuclear launch codes—to the other side door, where they all quickly piled in.

Bob Corsetti and Secretary Iverson had already left for Peterson on another chopper a few minutes earlier. No sooner had the door closed than they were off the ground.

Neither Bennett nor McCoy had ever been in Marine One, nor had Black for that matter, and it was far more cramped than they’d expected. But it would all be over in a moment. It was just a quick hop to the tarmac at Peterson AFB where Air Force One, two C-130 transports filled with the remains of the presidential motorcade, and six F-16s armed with Sidewinder air-to-air missiles were revved up and ready to rock.

But what struck Bennett most looking out the window as they came in low and hovered briefly was the sheer number of soldiers and security personnel standing guard. He could see Secret Service sharpshooters on the roofs of the nearby hangars, Secret Service SWAT teams ringing the president’s plane, and tanks, Humvees, and armored personnel carriers lining the runway.

None of the men and women down there knew what the future held. None of them knew if another attack was imminent, nor what form it might take.

Had any of them really signed up for this? Were they really prepared to lay down their lives? Why? Why was it worth it to them when these smart, strong, savvy Americans could be doing anything else, anything they wanted?

They clearly were part of something important, something they loved and believed in very deeply. They were willing to die, if necessary, to protect the President of the United States and the principles he and their country represented, even if they hadn’t voted for him or even liked him.

Bennett honestly didn’t understand any of it. Not really. He’d been raised in a family that despised guns and distrusted anyone with one. He wasn’t exactly a pacifist but he was sympathetic to those who were. He believed a lot of money and a good stiff drink could solve most problems. And he was terrified of dying. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t think much about it either. He just couldn’t fathom what motivated a person to be willing to die for a stranger or a colleague, much less a country or a cause.

Yet, for the first time in his life, he found himself humbled and grateful and moved by the simple patriotism of these soldiers and Secret Service agents, patriotism he had often thought trite and unsophisticated. In high school and college he remembered feeling superior to buddies who’d gone off to wallow in the mud and “play war.” After all, he was going to become a Wall Street big shot and make the big bucks. He was a going to become a Harvard globe-trotter, jetting from London and Davos to Hong Kong and Tokyo. Sitting around watching NASCAR and eating hot dogs (which he called “fat sticks”) and chugging beer and singing Lee Greenwood’s “I’m Proud To Be An American” had all seemed so hokey and blue collar to him. He’d never wanted any of it.

He always wanted to get his MBA, work on the Street, pick up a copy of the
Journal
and the
Times
every morning, and smell the reassuring leather of his briefcase as he stepped on the elevator and rode up a tower of steel and glass and stepped out on the top of the world. And he’d done just that.

He believed a “new world order” was possible. He believed in a twenty-first-century global financial architecture,” about which he’d waxed so eloquent to colleagues around the world. He truly believed that fiber optic networks and digital capital were making nation states obsolete. Why not one giant global free trade zone, rather than all these trade barriers and complications? Why not do away with all these exchange rates and friction and all these currency speculators making fortunes and wreaking havoc and causing ulcers?

Now Bennett didn’t know what to believe. The men and women on the ground below him had something he didn’t, and though he didn’t dare admit it to anyone, it was something attractive. So did the president, come to think of it. So did McCoy. He didn’t quite know what it was. Not yet anyway. But as Marine One touched down on this military base at war, he knew he needed to find out.

The world was changing so fast. The constants in his life suddenly didn’t seem so constant anymore. Here he was, sitting next to the most powerful man in the world. Yet never had Bennett felt so powerless.

Ten minutes later, Air Force One—flanked by fighter jets—roared down the runway and headed for Washington.