Firebreak (24 page)

Then it hit him. It had to be Rose Temple, the Canadian he had met at Marbella and had lost to that Arab engineer. The coincidence was too much and he slowed, lost deep in memory. Then he buttonhooked and ran back down the beach until he was opposite her. She was swimming parallel to the shore, maybe fifty meters off shore. He kept pace with her, surprised at how powerful a swimmer she was. When she turned shoreward, he sat down on the sandy berm and waited. Any doubts vanished when she waded through the shallow water. The traffic-stopping figure, black hair, wide yet very feminine shoulders, the magnificent breasts and narrow waist could only belong to one person. But it was her eyes that he remembered best. Those dark pools of promise and beauty. It was Rose Temple.

She ignored him and started to jog back down the beach. He pushed himself up and ran after her. “Rose,” he called. “Matt Pontowski. We met at Marbella in Spain.” There was no response at first and she kept running. He stopped, afraid that it might be a case of mistaken identity. “No way,” he mumbled to himself and started after her again. “Rose,” he called at her back, “please stop.”

The woman halted and turned to face him and all his doubts vanished. She stood there in her black tank suit, not the flashy, half-naked come-on she had worn to entice Is’al Mana, but the same suit he remembered from the yacht party. Her skin was wet and glowing and her thick plait of hair shimmered in the morning sun as she stood there, waiting for him. “My name is Shoshana and I’m an Israeli, not a Canadian.” She turned and ran down the beach, leaving him dumbfounded.

He headed back to the hotel, confused by the feeling of loss that held him tight. “What the hell,” he said, twisting to look back down the beach. Then he ran as fast as he could after her. It was not a case of mistaken identity. It had to be her. Who else would tell him that she was not a Canadian? But the beach was empty. He had lost her. Slowly he walked back to the hotel. Well, you know how you’re going to spend this weekend, he told himself. He was going to find the woman who now called herself Shoshana.

Shoshana leaned against the back wall of a beach house, waiting for Matt to run by. She clenched her towel tightly, fighting back the tears that were threatening her. You have no reason to cry, she berated herself. He means nothing to you. That’s a lie and I’m finished with lies. Once I was attracted to him but now he’s part of a past that has nothing to do with my future. Again, she chastised herself for being so weak as to cry. She vowed never to cry again.

When her breathing had slowed, she found her car and drove home to the safety of her family’s apartment on the hillside. She let herself in and called, “Father, I’m back,” surprised that her voice sounded normal. Avi Tamir came out of die kitchen, a worried look on his face. He nodded in the direction of the balcony and disappeared back into the kitchen. She walked through the French doors.

Gad Habish was standing there, waiting.

“He wants to see you immediately,” the secretary said to Habish without looking up from her work. The “he” was the wizened curmudgeon who headed Mossad’s operations—the Ganef. Habish walked directly into the thief’s office.

“Will she do it?” the Ganef asked.

“I don’t know. Shoshana hates me and everything we do.” Habish waited for a reply. There wasn’t any. “Do we need her?”

The Ganef gave a little snort. “Pontowski is the grandson of the President of the United States. Have you forgotten that?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “This is a chance to establish a
liaison
we might turn to our advantage later. We don’t pass up opportunities like this.” He paused. The Ganef had carefully meshed the reports of Matt’s morning runs on the base with Shoshana’s morning swim. It was simply a matter of bringing them together. “Especially when it only cost us a phone call to Harkabi to bring him to Haifa for a weekend.

“What about the hotel?”

A line crossed the Ganef’s lips that Habish took for a smile. “The Americans are paying for their rooms, not Mossad.”

Why am I doing this? Shoshana berated herself as she swam by die same part of the beach as the day before. She had been pulled and turned a dozen different ways by her emotions after Habish had left the apartment and still wasn’t sure what to do. A warm tugging feeling kept pulling at her, urging her to go to the beach. It was the same sensation she had experienced at Marbella when they had first met. Be honest, she told herself, you want to see him again. But a revulsion at the thought of working for Mossad turned her down dark corridors of self-loathing and disgust. She wasn’t the same person.

Matt sat on the berm in the same spot where he had waited the day before and watched Shoshana swim in to shore. He caught his breath as she walked toward him and he remembered the Greek legend of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, who rose naked from the sea. Now I know what the Greeks were thinking about, he thought as he watched her wade the last few feet toward him. “I’d always thought Aphrodite was a blonde,” he said, loud enough for her to hear.

Shoshana said nothing and sat down beside him. “My name is Shoshana Tamir and when we met I was an agent for Mossad.” She forced herself to look out to sea and not to him. It was an effort that cost her dearly but she was determined to tell him the truth. “Do you know what Mossad is?” Nothing from Matt. “It’s our version of the CIA,” she continued. “My objective was to seduce and exploit Is’al Mana. And I did. He was my only assignment and I quit Mossad when I was finished. I’m training as a medic in Zahal and start nursing school next month.”

“Zahal?”

“A word we use for Zvah Haganah Le Israel—Israel Defense Forces.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Confusion and pain caught at his words.

Silence. Then a slight shake of her head. “I don’t know. After you saw me yesterday, a Mossad case officer came to my home and asked me to make contact with you. They arranged for you to stay at your hotel, hoping we would meet.”

“Why would they do that?”

She stood, ready to leave. Matt reached up and touched her arm, not wanting her to go.

For the first time, she turned and looked him fully in the face. She was on the verge of tears. “Don’t be naive. They didn’t tell me
why.
Your grandfather … They’re looking for a connection … the Israeli connection. I don’t know.” Despair ate at every word but there were no tears.

“Why are you telling me all this?” She still wouldn’t answer the most important question. She couldn’t, for she didn’t know the answer.

Shoshana pulled away from his touch and walked away, not understanding herself and the driving need to be free of lies and deceit. He followed her and grabbed her arm, forcing her to stop and turn around. “Why?” he demanded. Like her he did not understand what was driving him on and why he didn’t leave and get her out of his life.

“Look at me!” Self-hate drove her words. “I’m a whore. I used my body to get what I wanted.” Her body trembled as she fought to control her ragged breathing. Then, almost a gasp: “I had to kill Is’al to escape.”

He dropped his hand and freed her. Every rational instinct he possessed was shouting for him to disengage and run for cover. But this was not combat. “Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” she demanded to know. “I murdered a man and there is no punishment for me. Nothing.”

“I was in a crash with another jet where three men were killed,” Matt said, choosing his words carefully. “They say it wasn’t my fault, but I was involved. If I had been a better pilot, maybe less aggressive—who knows? One was a good friend and another, well, after my grandfather, Jack Locke was the finest man I ever met. He had a beautiful wife and two small kids.” They stood inches apart, not touching, silent. His hurt matched hers. “Remembering is the punishment.”

Only the sound of the surf washing at their feet filled the small space between them.

The headlines shouted,
EMBATTLED PRESIDENT STRUGGLES TO SURVIVE
. Melissa looked around her office and didn’t see any struggling going on. In fact, it was business pretty much as normal. She read the lead story anyway to find out what should be happening around her. She almost chuckled as the reporter alluded to midnight conferences and the hint of a presidential cover-up. She looked up to see Bill Carroll standing in front of her, five minutes early for the intelligence update on the Middle East the President had requested. “You’re early,” she said. “Have a seat and I’ll show you in when the President is ready.” Neither gave the slightest indication that they had met before in a much more unprofessional manner when Carroll had first told her about his discoveries in the Middle East.

Exactly on time, she escorted Carroll into the Oval Office where four men were with the President. Zack Pontowski was his normal unflappable self; three of the other men appeared at ease and only Fraser seemed agitated or worried. You do look a little ruffled, she thought, enjoying his discomfort. “Okay, Bill,” Pontowski said. “What have you got this morning? The PDB sounded grim.”

So that’s what’s got to Fraser, Melissa decided. The President read something Fraser didn’t want him to read. She left them and returned to her desk.

Carroll set his briefing charts on an easel so the group could see them, took a deep breath, and began. “Mr. President, gentlemen, the Syrians are moving their tanks and armored units in a way that constitutes an increased military threat to Israel.” He detailed how the Syrians were positioning three large armored corps in a forward position facing Israel. The northernmost force consisted of at least a thousand tanks in the Bekáa Valley opposite Beirut and anchored on the Syrian city of Homs. The tanks could move south down the Bekáa, cross the Litani River, and strike into the northern part of Israel directly at Haifa. The Bekia Valley was a dagger pointed at the northern border of Israel.

The middle force numbered approximately eight hundred tanks and was moving into position on the Golan Heights right up to the Syrian disengagement line. The 1,250-member United Nations Disengagement Observer Force in the Area of Separation was getting edgy and had asked the UN for permission to reduce the number of their observers in case fighting broke out.

But most ominous was the third force of at least fifteen hundred tanks clustered next to the Jordanian/Syrian border in the Jebel Druze highlands. A new highway linked the Jebel Druze to the Jordan River and allowed the Syrians to thrust directly at Jerusalem through Jordan.

“Where did the Syrians get that many tanks?” Bobby Burke, the director of central intelligence, snorted.

“Sir,” Carroll replied, “they bought them from the Russians.”

The President ignored the exchange and studied the chart. “So the Syrians could launch a three-pronged thrust at Israel,” he said.

Carroll flipped to the next chart of the Sinai Desert. “And the Egyptians have moved the location of their annual defense exercise, Desert Star, that starts next week.” He circled an area that extended from the Suez Canal into the Sinai.

“Military maneuvers in the Sinai are a violation of the Camp David Accords,” National Security Adviser Cagliari said. “The Israelis would never let them get away with that, nor would the UN peacekeeping forces and observers stationed in the Sinai.”

“Normally, sir, that would be a true statement,” Carroll answered. “But the Egyptians have invited observers to monitor the exercise and have even asked the Israelis to participate. The Israelis have ignored the invitation and protested the exercise. But they keep looking over their shoulder at all those Syrian tanks on their northern border.”

Admiral Scovill, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, studied the map. “Any indication that the Iraqis are involved in any of this?” he asked.

“None at this time,” Carroll answered. Burke nodded in agreement.

“What’s the Israeli reaction?” Cagliari asked.

“Apparently they are taking it very seriously and have declared state of alert Gimmel. There’s only two higher states of alert. As of now, all military leaves have been canceled and certain reserve units called up. If the Egyptians do go ahead with Desert Star, the Israelis will see it as a potential threat. They’ll have to mobilize and move forces into position in the Sinai and keep them there until the threat goes away. They simply cannot ignore a military exercise of that size so close to their borders.”

“So what are you telling us?” Fraser asked.

Admiral Scovill answered, “A war is going to break out soon. A military exercise like Desert Star is a screen to move forces into position. Any fool can see that.” He glared at Carroll as if he were personally responsible. “Who presents the biggest threat to Israel and what can we do about it?”

“The Egyptians, sir. Apply diplomatic pressure and get them to cancel the exercise. That will remove a threat from the Israelis’ southern flank and allow them to concentrate their forces opposite the Syrians. No way the Syrians can take on the Israelis without Egypt tying up part of the IDF.”

Pontowski nodded in agreement. The lieutenant colonel had reinforced what he was thinking. “Contact State,” Pontowski ordered. “Call the Egyptian ambassador in today and let’s have a friendly chat. Also, I want to send all the players over there a loud and clear signal that we are concerned and are not going to sit on our thumbs and let a war break out. Any other suggestions, Colonel?” Pontowski was testing Carroll, seeing how deep his analysis cut.

Carroll thought for a moment. “This might be a good time to practice Response Alpha of your new national energy plan.”

Fraser was floored. “Sir, we don’t need to start rationing gas because of this.”

“Tom,” Pontowski said, a gentle rebuke surfacing in his voice, “you need to read the plan. Response Alpha is the first step we take in case of an oil crisis. It calls for the government to set up the framework that makes it possible to quickly implement rationing and conservation measures.” He paused, definitely liking the way Carroll thought. “By testing our system, we send a message that our diplomatic efforts to keep fighting from breaking out are not going to be held captive by a fear of an oil crisis or another embargo.”

“But Mr. President,” Fraser argued, “that means the oil companies will be subject to strict governmental control. That’s politically hazardous—”

Pontowski cut him off. “We won’t ration a drop of gas at this time or interfere with anybody’s business. We are conducting an exercise to find out how well our bureaucrats have done their job.”

Ten minutes later, Melissa glanced over the top of her reading glasses at Fraser as he marched into his office. “Get the chief of the Secret Service in here now,” he ordered and closed his office door behind him. Melissa dialed the number and relayed Fraser’s message. My, but he is upset, she thought.

A few minutes later, Stan Abbott, an athletic fifty-four-year-old, was sitting in front of Fraser. “Stan, thanks for coming up on such short notice.” Outwardly, Fraser was calm and controlled. “I know you’re aware of what the newspapers are saying about the President.” Abbott nodded. “I have just come from the President and want to reassure you that there is no cover-up going on. In fact, we want to do everything in our power to keep that from happening.
We’ ‘—
again he stressed the “we,” implying he was relaying a message from Pontowski—“are very worried about certain people who work in the Office of the President and …” Fraser hesitated to see how much Abbott would do without receiving direct orders. Abbott said nothing.

Reluctantly, Fraser continued, committing himself. “We want a fresh look at these people.” He handed Abbott a short list of names.

“You want us to request a new background investigation on these people?”

“I was hoping your office could investigate them,” Fraser answered. “Very discreetly of course, but thoroughly. We’ve got to know if there’s any rot in our woodwork, if there is something, anything, that’s been missed.”

“I can arrange that,” Abbott said. Fraser thanked him and he left the office. Outside, he glanced at the list Fraser had given him. It puzzled him why only two names were written down: Melissa Courtney-Smith and Lieutenant Colonel William G. Carroll. If there was anything about those two that posed a threat to the President, he would find it.

What a strange derangement, Shoshana thought. I’m worse than a teenage girl and not acting my age. I’m twenty-seven and moving around in a daze living from hour to hour, simply happy to be with him.

Matt’s back was to her as he leaned over the rail of the apartment’s balcony, taking in the view. The lights of Haifa were twinkling in the dusk, spreading out as night fell. They were both tired after three days of sightseeing and Shoshana was leaning against the doorjamb studying his back, trying to come to terms with the man. Roaming around Jerusalem with Matt had been a discovery for her. He had dragged her into East Jerusalem, the Arab section, and had charged down narrow passageways, eager to meet the Arabs head-on.

She had protested that it was dangerous, but Matt had ignored her and mingled with the crowds, another tourist spending his money. That constantly changing kaleidoscope of new and old, Western and Arab culture, that mingled and fused in front of them in delightful patterns drew him on. He had finally run down and dragged her protesting into a small restaurant where a friendly owner and his family served an excellent grilled lamb, salad, and homemade bread. The smells of the food, the family speaking Arabic, had triggered a barrage of memories for Shoshana and, for a split second, she was back in Iraq. Then Matt’s voice brought her back to the moment and she had found warmth and protection in his shadow.