The Fist of God (30 page)

He showed his guest to one of a pair of leather club chairs before the log fire, and an English butler entered with a bottle and two wineglasses on a silver tray.

The Fist of God

“Something I thought you might enjoy, my friend, while we chat.”

The butler poured two Lalique glasses of the red wine, and the Israeli sipped. Nathanson raised an inquiring eyebrow.

“Superb, of course,” said Netanyahu. Château Mouton Rothschild ’61

is not easy to come by and not to be gulped. The butler left the bottle within reach and withdrew.

Saul Nathanson was far too subtle to barge into the meat of what he wanted to say. Conversational hors d’oeuvres were served first. Then the Middle East.

“There’s going to be a war, you know,” he said sadly.

“I have no doubt about it,” agreed Netanyahu.

“Before it is over many young Americans may well be dead, fine young men who do not deserve to die. We must all do what we can to keep that number as low as humanly possible, wouldn’t you say? More wine?”

“I could not agree more.”

What on earth was the man driving at? Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister genuinely had no idea.

“Saddam,” said Nathanson, staring at the fire, “is a menace. He must be stopped. He is probably more of a menace to Israel than to any other neighboring state.”

“We have been saying that for years. But when we bombed his nuclear reactor, America condemned us.”

Nathanson made a dismissive gesture with one hand.

“Nonsense, of course, all cosmetic nonsense for the face of things. We both know that, and we both know better. I have a son serving in the Gulf.”

“I didn’t know. May he return safely.”

Nathanson was genuinely touched.

The Fist of God

“Thank you, Bibi, thank you. I pray so every day. My firstborn, my only son. I just feel that ... at this point in time ... cooperation between us all must be without stint.”

“Unarguable.” The Israeli had the uncomfortable feeling that bad news was coming.

“To keep the casualties down, you see. That’s why I ask for your help, Bibi, to keep the casualties down. We are on the same side, are we not? I am an American and a Jew.”

The order of precedence in which he had used the words hung in the air.

“And I am an Israeli and a Jew,” murmured Netanyahu. He too had his order of precedence. The financier was in no way fazed.

“Precisely. But because of your education here, you will understand how—well, how shall I phrase it?—emotional Americans can sometimes be. May I be blunt?”

A welcome relief, thought the Israeli.

“If anything were done that could in some small way keep the number of casualties down, even by a handful, both I and my fellow-countrymen would be eternally grateful to whoever had contributed that anything.”

The other half of the sentiment remained unsaid, but Netanyahu was far too experienced a diplomat to miss it. And if anything were done or not done that might increase those casualties, America’s memory would be long and her revenge unpleasant.

“What is it you want from me?” he asked.

Saul Nathanson sipped his wine and gazed at the flickering logs.

“Apparently, there is a man in Baghdad. Code name—Jericho. ...”

When he had finished, it was a thoughtful Deputy Foreign Minister who sped out to Dulles to catch the flight home.

The Fist of God

Chapter 9

The roadblock that got him was at the corner of Mohammed Ibn Kassem Street and the Fourth Ring Road. When he saw it in the distance, Mike Martin was tempted to hang a U-turn and head back the way he had come.

But there were Iraqi soldiers stationed down the road on each side at the approaches to the checkpoint, apparently just for that purpose, and it would have been crazy to try and outrun their rifle fire at the slow speed necessary for a U-turn. He had no choice but to drive on, joining the end of the line of vehicles waiting for check-through.

As usual, driving through Kuwait City, he had tried to avoid the major roads where roadblocks were likely to be set up, but crossing any of the six Ring Roads that envelop Kuwait City in a series of concentric bands could only be done at a major junction.

He had also hoped, by driving in the middle of the morning, to be lost in the jumble of traffic or to find the Iraqis sheltering from the heat.

But mid-October had cooled the weather and the green-bereted Special Forces were proving a far cry from the useless Popular Army. So he sat at the wheel of the white Volvo station wagon and waited.

It had still been black and deepest night when he had driven the off-road far out into the desert to the south and dug up the remainder of his explosives, guns, and ammunition, the equipment he had promised to Abu Fouad. It had been before dawn when he made the transfer at the The Fist of God

lockup garage in the back streets of Firdous from the jeep to the station wagon.

Between the transfer from vehicle to vehicle and the moment when he judged the sun to be high enough and hot enough to send the Iraqis to seek shelter in the shade, he had even managed a two-hour nap at the wheel of the car inside the garage. Then he had driven the station wagon out and put the jeep inside the garage, aware that such a prized vehicle would soon be confiscated.

Finally he had scrubbed his face and hands and changed his clothes, swapping the stained and desert-soiled robes of the Bedou tribesman for the clean white
dish-dash
of the Kuwaiti doctor.

The cars in front of him inched forward toward the Iraqi infantry grouped around the concrete-filled barrels up ahead. In some cases the soldiers simply glanced at the driver’s identity card and waved him on; in other cases the car was pulled to one side for a search. Usually, it was those vehicles that carried some kind of cargo that were ordered to the curb.

He was uncomfortably aware of the two big wooden trunks behind him on the floor of the cargo area, whose contents were enough to ensure his instant arrest and hand-over to the tender mercies of the AMAM.

Finally the last car ahead of him surged away, and he pulled up to the barrels. The sergeant in charge did not bother to ask for identity papers. Seeing the big boxes in the rear of the Volvo, the soldier waved the station wagon to the side of the road and shouted an order to his colleagues who waited there.

An olive-drab uniform appeared at the driver’s side window, which Martin had already rolled down. The uniform bent, and a stubbled face appeared in the open window.

“Out,” said the soldier. Martin got out and straightened up. He smiled The Fist of God

politely. A sergeant with a hard, pockmarked face walked up. The private soldier wandered round to the rear door and peered in at the boxes.

“Papers,” said the sergeant. He studied the ID card that Martin offered, and his glance flickered from the blurred face behind the plastic to the one standing in front of him. If he saw any difference between the British officer facing him and the store clerk of the Al-Khalifa Trading Corporation whose portrait had been used for the card, he gave no sign.

The identity card had been dated as issued a year earlier, and in a year a man can decide to shave his beard.

“You are a doctor?”

“Yes, Sergeant. I work at the hospital.”

“Where?”

“On the Jahra road.”

“Where are you going?”

“To the Amiri hospital, in Dasman.”

The sergeant was clearly not of great education, and within his culture a doctor rated as a man of considerable learning and stature. He grunted and walked to the back of the station wagon.

“Open,” he said.

Martin unlocked the rear door, and it swung up above their heads. The sergeant stared at the two trunks.

“What are these?”

“Samples, Sergeant. They are needed by the research laboratory at the Amiri.”

“Open.”

Martin withdrew several small brass keys from the pocket of his
dish-dash
. The boxes were of the cabin-trunk or portmanteau type, The Fist of God

purchased from a luggage store, and each had two brass locks.

“You know these trunks are refrigerated?” said Martin conversationally, as he fiddled with the keys.

“Refrigerated?” The sergeant was mystified by the word.

“Yes, Sergeant. The interiors are cold. They keep the cultures at a constant low temperature. That guarantees that they remain inert. I’m afraid if I open up, the cold air will escape and they will become very active. Better stand back.”

At the phrase “stand back,” the sergeant scowled and unslung his carbine, pointing it at Martin, suspecting the boxes must contain some kind of weapon.

“What do you mean?” he snarled. Martin shrugged apologetically.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t prevent it. The germs will just escape into the air around us.”

“Germs—what germs?” The sergeant was confused and angry, as much with his own ignorance as with the doctor’s manner.

“Didn’t I say where I worked?” he asked mildly.

“Yes, at the hospital.”

“True. The isolation hospital. These are full of smallpox and cholera samples for analysis.”

This time the sergeant did jump back, a clear two feet. The marks on his face were no accident—as a child he had nearly died of smallpox.

“Get that stuff out of here, damn you!”

Martin apologized again, closed the rear door, slid behind the wheel, and drove away. An hour later, he was guided into the fish warehouse in Shuwaikh Port and handed over his cargo to Abu Fouad.

United States Department of State

Washington, D.C. 20520

The Fist of God

October 16, 1990

MEMORANDUM TO: James Baker

FROM: Political Intelligence and Analysis Group SUBJECT: Destruction of Iraqi War Machine CLASSIFICATION: EYES ONLY

In the ten weeks since the invasion by Iraq of the Emirate of Kuwait, the most rigorous investigation has been undertaken, both by ourselves and our British allies, of the precise size, nature, and state of preparation of the war machine presently at the disposal of President Saddam Hussein.

Critics will doubtless say, with the usual benefit of hindsight, that such an analysis should have been accomplished prior to this date. Be that as it may, the findings of the various analyses are now before us, and they present a very disturbing picture.

The conventional forces of Iraq alone, with its standing army of a million and a quarter men, its guns, tanks, rocket batteries, and modern air force, combine to make Iraq far and away the most powerful military force in the Middle East.

Two years ago, it was estimated that if the effect of the war with Iran had been to reduce the Iranian war machine to the point where it could no longer realistically threaten its neighbors, the damage inflicted by Iran on the Iraqi war machine was of similar importance.

It is now clear that, in the case of Iran, the severe purchasing embargo deliberately created by ourselves and our British The Fist of God

colleagues has caused the situation to remain much the same.

In the case of Iraq, however, the two intervening years have been filled by a rearmament program of appalling vigor.

You will recall, Mr. Secretary, that Western policy in the Gulf area and indeed the entire Middle East has long been based upon the concept of balance: the notion that stability and therefore the status quo can only be maintained if no nation in the area is permitted to acquire such power as to threaten into submission all its neighbors and thus establish dominance.

On the conventional warfare front alone, it is now clear that Iraq has acquired such a power and now bids to create such dominance.

But this report is even more concerned with another aspect of Iraqi preparations: the establishment of an awesome stock of weapons of mass destruction, coupled with continuing plans for even more, and their appropriate international, and possibly intercontinental, delivery systems.

In short, unless the utter destruction of these weapons, those still in development, and their delivery systems is accomplished, the immediate future demonstrates a catastrophic prospect.

Within three years, according to studies presented to the Medusa Committee and with which the British completely concur, Iraq will possess its own atomic bomb and the ability to launch it anywhere within a two-thousand-kilometer radius of Baghdad.

To this prospect must be added that of thousands of tons of deadly poison gas and a bacteriological war potential involving anthrax, tularemia, and possibly bubonic and The Fist of God

pneumonic plague.

Were Iraq ruled by a benign and reasonable regime, the prospect would still be daunting. The reality is that Iraq is ruled solely by President Saddam Hussein, who is clearly in the grip of two identifiable psychiatric conditions: megalomania and paranoia.

Within three years, failing preventive action, Iraq will be able to dominate by threat alone all the territory from the north coast of Turkey to the Gulf of Aden, from the seas off Haifa to the mountains of Kandahar.

The effect of these revelations must be to change Western policy radically. The destruction of the Iraqi war machine and particularly the weapons of mass destruction must now become the overriding aim of Western policy. The liberation of Kuwait has now become irrelevant, serving only as a justification.

The desired aim can be frustrated only by a unilateral withdrawal of Iraq from Kuwait, and every effort must be made to ensure that this does not happen.

U.S. policy, in alliance with our British allies, must therefore be dedicated to four goals:

1. Insofar as it is possible, covertly to present provocations and arguments to Saddam Hussein aimed at causing him to refuse to pull out of Kuwait.

2. To reject any compromise he may offer in exchange for leaving Kuwait, thus removing the justification for our planned invasion and the destruction of his war machine.

3. To urge the United Nations to pass without further procrastination the long-delayed Security Council Resolution The Fist of God

678, authorizing the Coalition Allies to begin the air war as soon as they are ready.