The Last Jihad (30 page)

The words had barely tumbled from his lips when he heard the distinctive metal clicks.

The cocking of a Smith & Wesson .45 ACP revolver directly behind his left ear. Iverson’s blood ran cold. The game was up.

It was dark, moonless, and well after eight o’clock Friday night, Israel time.

The white Chevy Suburban finally wound its way up the narrow road, passed through the massive stone-and-steel gates, and pulled into the secluded driveway.

Dr. Eliezer Mordechai’s home was built into the top of one of the hilltops on the northern edge of Jerusalem. And with Israel entering the darkest hour of her existence, Dietrich Black took comfort in seeing the two security vans from the U.S. Embassy waiting for them, just as he’d requested. It was his job to expect the unexpected. It was his job to make sure nothing happened to Jonathan Meyers Bennett, the newly appointed architect of the president’s secret Middle East peace plan. And it was a job he took seriously.

A Marine guard immediately recognized and greeted Black, but carefully checked the photo IDs of each person in the Suburban anyway, beginning with Bennett. Security agents combed the perimeter with M-16s and bomb-sniffing dogs. Every
i
had been dotted. Every
t
had been crossed. And that was all that could be expected.

Bennett knew from the dossier Black had put together for him that Dr. Mordechai had designed this home himself.

With a Frank Lloyd Wright feel to it—sort of a Falling Water without the water—the structure itself seemed nearly indistinguishable from the hill into which it was built. A cobblestone path—lit on each side by small, discreet ground lamps—snaked authorized visitors up a labyrinth of outdoor stone staircases.

Eventually, these arrived under an immense, thick, jagged limestone cantilever. The cantilever jutted out like a large cliff over a spectacular view of the Old City to the right, and into the home’s shadowy, arched, cavelike entrance to the left. The front door rightfully belonged in some museum, not here where so few people could admire it. A massive slab of Lebanese cedar, it had hand-whittled carvings depicting the history of Jerusalem adorning the exterior, gently lit by miniature overhead lamps recessed into the dark stone above.

From the moment McCoy announced their arrival by ringing the doorbell, and heard the echo of chimes as beautiful as those in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the valley below, the three Americans suddenly knew how little they really knew. Dr. Mordechai’s cloak-and-dagger past already intrigued them no end. But now they began to sense that his home was somehow a reflection of the man inside, a man shrouded in mystery and murkiness and a hint of magic.

Everybody on board was already puking their guts out.

But the SH-60B Seahawk helicopter—the Navy’s version of the Army’s Blackhawk—lifted off from the
Reagan
anyway and headed into the raging storm.

Their cargo: SEAL Team Six and three counterterrorism specialists from the Lawrence Livermore National Labs, each part of the U.S. government’s top-secret Nuclear Emergency Search Team.

Their mission: To make sure Saddam Hussein never got a second chance at firing a nuclear missile at Israel or her neighbors.

Their probability of success: Limited, at best. Preventing any missile attack—much less a nuclear attack—from a mobile missile launcher was a million-to-one shot. And since the Israelis had just successfully done it once, no one on this chopper was optimistic they could beat the odds.

The wooden door opened.

The two Mossad agents who greeted them were backlit and it was hard to see their faces. But the Uzis hanging at their sides were unmistakable.

For the second time in less than five minutes, Bennett, McCoy, and Black were again asked to show their photo IDs. They were required to put their thumbs down on an electronic touch pad, tethered to a powerful notebook computer whose superthin screen glowed eerily in the dark.

As they waited a few moments for their Social Security numbers and fingerprints to clear, a tiny, barely visible security camera mounted in the ceiling took rapid-fire snapshots of each visitor. All three faces were instantly digitized and processed simultaneously through high-speed databases.

The face-recognition software quickly conducted a “feature extraction.” The computer measured pixels on their eyes and lips. It scanned eighty different facial landmarks. It analyzed their cheekbones and skull structures. It then cross-checked their three-dimensional “face-prints” against the photos of thousands of known criminals and terrorists worldwide.

A moment later, one of the Israeli’s cell phones rang. It was Dr. Mordechai. From some other room deep inside this house, he was watching them. Once the computer gave its clearance, so did he. One of the Israeli agents threaded thin metal chains through three visitors’ passes, handed them over, and instructed that they be worn at all times in the house and on the surrounding property. He also asked the guests to remove their wet coats and shoes and put them in a small hall closet, which they proceeded to do.

On the left and the right, there were long, unlit hallways projecting east and west. But rather than proceed down either of these, the three were directed down the dimly lit hallway straight ahead. It was almost like a tunnel—covered by the limestone cantilever that came right through the external wall—and ended where a wide, circular staircase began.

It was here, finally, as they began to slowly spiral upwards to the second floor—the main floor—that they experienced an explosion of light and color and sound and aromas that swept them away into a world so different from their own.

Several emails arrived just before dinner—and they brought welcome news.

His forces were taking a beating. But Azziz wasn’t worried. Wasn’t this what boxers in the West called “rope a dope”? Iraq would look quiet and weak and wounded amidst the U.S. pummeling—then strike when the Americans least expected it.

Q19 email said they were ready to go the moment Azziz gave the word. The email from the “four horsemen” confirmed they were making excellent time to their target. And then, of course, hidden in a children’s hospital in downtown Baghdad, there was the crown jewel of the mission President Hussein now dubbed “The Last Jihad,” history’s final holy war against the Western and Zionist infidels.

Bennett, Black and McCoy climbed the spiral staircase.

As they did, they found themselves staring into a magnificent glass dome instead of a ceiling, a dome that allowed for a spectacular view of the moon and the stars above. It was clear and captivating and certainly unexpected. But in truth it was not the dome but the warm and gentle interior light from lamps scattered about the great room that seemed to beckon them from the dark tunnel below.

As their eyes gradually adjusted to the light, they could see a home filled with precious treasures. Thick, rich, gorgeous purple-and-gold-and-maroon Persian rugs covered the polished brown hardwood floors. Plush, green young palm trees—at least half a dozen of them—rose out of huge reddish clay pots positioned here and there.

Large brown Italian-leather couches and chairs surrounded a glass-and-wrought-iron coffee table, adorned with ancient archeological knickknacks from all over the Near East, and the latest news magazines from Israel, Europe, and the U.S.

A sleek, black baby grand piano sat quiet and unused in one corner of the room. Beside it stood a full-size stuffed camel whose glassy, haunting eyes seemed to follow them as they walked. A mahogany dining table set for four with china and silver and crystal—but easily able to accommodate at least a dozen guests—occupied another corner. In the center of the table sat a huge vase of freshly cut roses.

Behind the table, above an antique chest of drawers covered with family photos, on the curved, carved, chalky limestone wall that seemed to be the actual interior of the mountain, hung a painting.

It was no ordinary painting. It was a sweeping, larger-than-life canvas of royal blues, vivid yellows, and smudgy reddish-orange brush strokes that immediately captured the imagination but seemed completely indecipherable. A small plaque underneath it read, simply:
JACKSON POLLACK: BLUE (MOBY DICK)
, 1943. That was followed by a typically cryptic Pollack quote: “When I am in my painting, I’m not aware of what I’m doing. It’s only after a sort of ‘get acquainted’ period that I see what I have been about. I have no fears about making changes, destroying the image, because the painting has a life of its own.”

Abstract art didn’t do anything for Dietrich Black. What struck him most was that he couldn’t see a kitchen anywhere. But he could smell it. Ginger and turmeric and cumin and coriander hit him first, followed by tomato and onions and chili powder and roast lamb. A succulent, mouth-watering Indian curry was stewing somewhere close by, and surely great pots of yellow Basmati rice were steaming there as well.

McCoy closed her eyes for a moment and listened. She could hear the tinkle of a fountain. She could hear the crackling of a roaring fire in the great stone fireplace. And, as she listened more carefully, she began to hear the gentle strains of a Bach violin concerto seeping from small Bose speakers hidden all over the house. It was one of her favorite CDs, performed by Itzhak Perlman, the Israeli-born violinist on whom President Reagan bestowed America’s Medal of Liberty back in 1986.

McCoy had briefly taken violin lessons as a young girl, and hated them. But in 1993 she had met Perlman at the U.S. Embassy in Prague, and nearly fell in love. He had come to the romantic Czech capital to perform a concert with the cellist, Yo Yo Ma, and she was hooked. When she wasn’t jet-setting around the world with Jon Bennett, crafting billion-dollar oil deals, she was usually home at night in London in her Notting Hill townhouse, curled up under an old wool afghan, reading one of her favorite books and falling asleep to the sounds of the great Itzhak Perlman.

Bennett scanned the cavernous room. He found himself uninterested in, but not unaware of, the curry and the concerto. He had other things on his mind, like the Iraqi missiles pointed at their heads. The room was warm, but not overly so. Occasionally, a cool breeze seemed to emanate from somewhere, and now he knew where. He left Black and McCoy and began walking towards the huge plate glass windows and the sliding glass door that led to the veranda. Sitting atop the limestone cantilever, the veranda gave him a breathtaking view of the Old City. But more than that, it now brought him face-to-face with Dr. Eliezer Mordechai, who seemed to appear out of nowhere.

The Skyhawk helicopter shot into Iraqi airspace hard, fast, and under radar.

Following Iraq’s Highway 10 towards Baghdad, the team flew just fifty feet above the pavement at over 180 knots, and the crew was fully prepared to unleash its two 7.62mm front-mounted machine guns on any military vehicle it came across in their hunt for mobile Scud missile launchers.

“Striker One Six, Striker One Six, this is Sky Ranch. Do you copy?”

It was the senior controller on an E-3 AWACS some 22,000 feet above them.

“Sky Ranch, this is Striker One Six. We read you five by five.”

“You’ve requested refueling. We can have a tanker to you in about…”

Suddenly, warning lights and buzzers filled the Seahawk’s cockpit.

“What? Oh my God. Sky Ranch, Sky Ranch—some bogey just locked on to me.”

Someone out there in the storm had just acquired tone and was preparing to fire.

“Striker One Six, say again. We don’t have anyone on radar.”

“Well some bogey’s got me, Sky Ranch. Get me cover—now—or we’re history.”

Lt. Col. Curtis Ruiz, the Seahawk pilot, scanned his instruments, desperately trying to figure out what was going on, before it was too late.

“Striker One Six, this is Sky Ranch. We see it now. You’ve got an Iraqi MiG-29 hugging the highway behind you at Mach two. He’s twenty miles back and gaining fast. We’re directing two F-14s to your location. Stand by.”

Stand by?
thought the lead Seahawk pilot.
What the hell was that supposed to mean? Two minutes from now, they’d all be history.

Downing answered on the first ring.

It was Harris, desperately seeking good news. She was back at FBI headquarters, but she had none. Not yet. Whether she’d have any at all remained to be seen. But she promised to keep guzzling the Bureau’s bad black coffee in the hopes that something would turn up. Soon.

No sooner were they finishing introducing one another than the doorbell rang.

“That must be them,” Dr. Mordechai said. “Come, follow me.”

He led them back down the spiral staircase to the front door. Glancing at the security monitor, he immediately recognized the faces at the door without all the fancy high-tech equipment, and brushed by the antsy Mossad agents to open the door and welcome Dmitri Galishnikov and Ibrahim Sa’id.

“You’re late,” he quipped, greeting the two men with traditional Middle Eastern hugs and kisses and reacquainting them to Bennett and his team.