The Last Days (13 page)

The meeting in the Situation Room had now begun.

Everyone was present and accounted for. MacPherson sat at the head of the polished mahogany table. The seal of the president mounted on the white wall behind him, illuminated by a small lamp recessed into the ceiling. To the president's right sat Vice President Bill Oaks. White House Chief of Staff Bob Corsetti was next to him, followed by CIA Director Jack Mitchell. National Security Advisor Marsha Kirkpatrick sat directly across from the president.

To her right was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, four-star General Ed Mutschler, with Defense Secretary Burt Trainor next to him. Then came Attorney General Neil Wittimore. The seat traditionally belonging to Secretary of State Tucker Paine was filled by Deputy Secretary of State Dick Cavanaugh, fresh in from the emergency NATO summit in Madrid.

Along the wood-paneled walls sat a senior aide for each principal, several NSC Middle East experts, Ken Costello, the Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and the department's senior crisis manager, and Marty Benjamin, director of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff.

“Let's get started,” the president began. “First of all, I've just asked Assistant Secretary Dave Rogers to head over to Great Falls to Secretary Paine's house. As soon as there's a moment, I'll go over there myself. Bob, let's make sure all government flags are at half mast, and that notifications start going out to families of the DSS agents.”

“Yes, sir,” Corsetti agreed, taking notes on a yellow legal pad.

“Perhaps right now,” the president continued, “we could take a few minutes to pray for Claudia and the kids and the agents and their families—and, of course, for Jon and Erin and their team. Bill, would you mind leading us in prayer?”

“It would be an honor, Mr. President,” the vice president said, and everyone bowed their heads and closed their eyes.

 

Yuri Gogolov was not just a chess player.

He was a Russian grand master. He seemed to see around corners and through walls. And he did not play to win. He played to conquer and humiliate, and thus far he had never lost.

Born July 2, 1949, the only son of a highly decorated Soviet colonel—the grandson of Politburo members who traced their heritage back to the czars—Gogolov grew up in a gilded Moscow flat. He talked of a glorious future in the Red Army, but he secretly dreamed of a double life as the man who would destroy Bobby Fischer.

When Fischer won the U.S. Junior Championship in 1956 at the age of thirteen, he captured international headlines and the imagination of Gogolov, then a seven-year-old chess novice. Gogolov became obsessed by the world's youngest and most dangerous player. In time, he would become obsessed with the fact that the world's greatest player was not only an American but an anti-Semite from Brooklyn.

Fischer had a hatred of Jews that mirrored Gogolov's own. Fischer called the Jews “filthy, lying bastard people.” He raged in public against his enemies as “Jews, secret Jews, or CIA rats who work for the Jews.” He attacked the U.S. government as a “brutal, evil dictatorship.” He studied
Mein Kampf,
slept under a framed picture of Adolf Hitler, and once told a friend that he admired Hitler so much “because he imposed his will on the world.”

And Fischer didn't just destroy the Soviet grand masters, he crushed their will to play. In 1972, at the tender age of twenty-nine, Fischer came from behind—two games to nothing—to annihilate Boris Spassky, one of the great Soviet champions. “Now he feels like a god,” Spassky fumed at the time. “Fischer thinks all his problems are over—that he will have many friends, people will love him, history will obey him. But it is not so. I am afraid what will happen to him now.”

What would it feel like?
Gogolov remembered thinking when he'd read that quote.
To be a god? To make the world love you and history obey you, not because you could determine the fate of little marble statues, but because you could truly command the fate of real kings and kingdoms?

Gogolov had never liked speed chess. His game was careful and quiet. He would bide his time, plan his moves. He would follow his father's wishes, rise through the Soviet military ranks, and emerge as a Spetsnatz special forces commander. But that would only be the beginning. Deep down, in places he never spoke of, Yuri Gogolov wanted to live the reckless, ruthless life of Bobby Fischer, perhaps the greatest chess player to have ever lived. To be him. To transcend him. To destroy him, and the country of Fischer's birth.

Now he found himself thirteen stories above Tehran—alone with his thoughts, transfixed by the coverage from Gaza. Thus far, the operation was going far better than expected, and these were only the early stages.

Gogolov soon found himself on the
New York Times
home page and began scrolling through America's newspaper of record. The lead headline: “President Denounces Gaza Attacks; Israeli Forces Go on Full Alert.” He clicked on the story and scanned through it quickly to see if there were any tidbits he didn't yet know. And there, in the last paragraph, he hit pay dirt. “White House Press Secretary Charles A. Murray refused to comment when asked who the U.S. suspected was behind the multiple assassinations. But he confirmed that senior presidential advisor Jonathan M. Bennett escaped from the scene unharmed and is being kept in a secure, undisclosed location until his safe return to Washington can be arranged.”

Jonathan M. Bennett.

The name jumped off the screen at Gogolov. He knew very little about him, and neither Jibril nor any of the rest of his team seemed to know much either. But his name kept popping up on the radar again and again. Gogolov muted the television screens for a while and thought about that. “A secure, undisclosed location.” What did that mean? Could Bennett have already gotten out of Gaza? The weather didn't permit a helicopter extraction, either by the Americans or the Israelis. The only way out of the Strip was in a car or truck or vehicle of some kind. But Al-Nakbah operatives either controlled or were monitoring most of the major roads in and out of Gaza, though neither the Israelis nor the Americans knew it.

There'd been no word of Bennett's limousine getting past his men. It was still early. Was it possible that Bennett had eluded them and slipped out before Jibril's noose had tightened? Possible, but unlikely. More likely, thought Gogolov, was that Bennett was still inside the Strip. But for that to be true, for the White House press secretary to say that Bennett was in “a secure, undisclosed location” would mean, by definition, that the U.S. had a secure, undisclosed location inside Gaza. That would be news to Gogolov. A U.N.R.W.A. facility? That might be undisclosed—for the moment—but it would hardly be secure. Same with the Red Cross and Red Crescent facilities. None of them were secure against Palestinian military forces, and the U.S. had to know that, particularly given the current conditions. What could possibly be a secure location inside of Gaza for a White House advisor on the run?

He would keep pondering that thought. But for now he wanted to know more about Bennett. Linked to the current story was a lead headline from
The New York Times
's Sunday edition. Gogolov had read it a few days before, when it first came out. But now it intrigued him even more. “Point Man for Peace: Can Wall Street Wizard Really Cut Elusive Mideast Deal?” Gogolov took a sip of his piping hot Russian chai, and double-clicked to read it again.

Gogolov kept reading.

Bennett's father, Solomon, had died of a heart attack just a few weeks ago. Gogolov hadn't known that. Nor that Bennett's mother, Ruth, now lived all alone in Florida, in a retirement community just outside of Orlando. Interesting, Gogolov thought, and his mind began to wander. Orlando. How far was that from Savannah? It couldn't be more than a few hours. He mulled the idea over for a few minutes, then logged off the Internet, clicked off the TVs, and closed his eyes.

They've sent a rookie to challenge the grand master,
Gogolov thought to himself.
Better yet, they don't even realize what kind of game they're actually playing.

 

Changed into dry clothes, Bennett was ready.

He sat down in the small conference room off the main control room and sipped a cup of freshly brewed coffee as Tariq gave him a microphone to clip on, set up a digital video camera, and prepared to make the video feed to the White House go live.

A few moments later, McCoy entered Gaza Station's main control room. Bennett saw her through the doorway and did a double-take. She hadn't had a chance to take a shower yet, but she was drying her hair with a towel, and even in borrowed navy blue sweatpants and a white cotton T-shirt, she looked incredible. Fortunately, she didn't catch Bennett's startled reaction, and for that he couldn't have been more thankful.

“Can I borrow that?” McCoy asked Ziegler.

“Be my guest.”

She grabbed a rubber band off his desk and put her hair up in a ponytail. Then she spotted a Yankees baseball cap sitting on a file cabinet. She snagged that, too, adjusted the plastic straps to make it smaller, put it on and thanked Ziegler and Tariq for their hospitality. Then she came into the conference room and sat down next to Bennett.

“Ready when you are, Point Man.”

Ziegler had sensed something was in the air between these two the moment they'd arrived. He'd seen how McCoy looked at Bennett. He'd just caught Bennett's reaction when McCoy came into the room. It didn't take Dr. Phil to know something was going on here. They didn't get many visitors at Gaza Station. Certainly not White House VIPs like Jon Bennett. And certainly not Uzi-toting, Arabic-speaking CIA supermodels like Erin McCoy. Ziegler couldn't help but find himself curious, or wonder if Bennett was really McCoy's type.

Like everyone on his team—like everyone else in Washington and governments in two or three dozen other capitals around this region and the world—he'd read the
New York Times
profile on Bennett. He'd read the quotes by Bennett's colleagues and former college roommates. He knew Bennett's MO—big money, big temper, and absolutely no experience in the Byzantine political world of the Middle East. Was McCoy really drawn to this guy? Was she really interested in someone almost ten years older than her? Maybe. But maybe not. Ziegler knew better than to assume anything. Who knew? Maybe he had a shot.

Suddenly, Ziegler's face turned ashen. The man seemed transfixed on the bank of video monitors in front of him, but Bennett couldn't see a thing. His view was obstructed, and he was about to be patched through to Washington.

“What's going on?” Bennett yelled.

“Oh my God,” Ziegler said, his eyes darting from one screen to the next.

“What is it?” Bennett pressed.

But for a moment, Ziegler just stood there, shaking his head, unable to speak. He punched a few buttons. The TV monitors in the conference room where Bennett and McCoy were flickered to life. The images were unbelievable. A bloodbath was under way, but neither Bennett nor McCoy understood exactly what they were seeing. Phones started ringing. Ziegler's team was moving quickly now, scrambling to get on top of the situation. E-mails started coming in from field operatives scattered throughout the West Bank and Gaza. Adrenaline was flowing and the tension in the room was palpable.

“JZ, what the hell is going on?” Bennett demanded. “I'm on with the president in less than three minutes. I've got to—”

“We've got a little situation here. We've got a huge gun battle erupting in Khan Yunis. But it's not just Khan Yunis. It's Gaza City. Hebron. Jericho. Nablus. We've got huge battles starting in most of the major Palestinian population centers.”

“With who, Israelis?”

“No, that's just it—it looks like the top Palestinian security chiefs are mobilizing their forces and squaring off against each other.”

“What are you talking about?” Bennett asked, trying to process what Ziegler was saying.

“I'm talking about the worst-case scenario, Jon. I'm talking about a full-blown Palestinian civil war.”

Something evil was moving through the streets of Gaza.

Bennett stared at the monitors in front of him. Through pouring rain and thick clouds of smoke, he could see a raging firefight under way. He could see cars overturned and consumed by flames.

Tracer bullets crisscrossed through dark alleyways, and though it was only approaching noon, it was as though an oppressive darkness had fallen over the rain-soaked city. It was impossible to assess accurately the extent of the carnage, at least by watching it from the vantage point of a Predator drone. But men, women, and children were dying. Their blood was running through the gutters.

All hell was breaking loose. That much was clear. Bennett felt severe pains shoot through his stomach and abdomen. McCoy saw him wince and hold his side.

“Gaza Station, this is Prairie Ranch.”

It was Marsha Kirkpatrick in the Situation Room. The videoconference was live.

“You are now connected to a National Security Council meeting already in progress. Please authenticate.”

Ziegler and Tariq scrambled to secure the connection and patch Bennett through.

“Jon, it's the president, can you hear me?”

Bennett straightened up and tried to ignore the intense pain he was now in. He fumbled with his IFB earpiece, but after a moment or two—with McCoy's help—he was finally connected.

“Yes, Mr. President, I can—finally—and I can see you guys as well on the monitors here. Sorry for the delay.”

“Are you and Erin OK?”

“We're good, sir—lucky, I guess.”

“Luck had nothing to do with it, Jon. Someone's looking out for you, and it's not just our friends at Langley. What about Dmitri and Ibrahim?”

“They're OK, sir—shook up, like all of us. But physically, yes, they'll be fine.”

“I understand there's been some confusion over how much access they can have?”

“Well, yes, that's true, sir.”

“Let me spell it out for you, Jon, so there's no confusion. I know you've got the best of intentions. Dmitri and Ibrahim are good men—friends of peace, and of this administration. But they're not American citizens. They're not cleared. And we can't just let them go roaming around in there. You and Erin are sitting in a twenty-five-million-dollar foxhole and we can't afford to let anybody know what it is or where. You got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now make sure those boys are well taken care of, and put them to work. Get Dmitri on the phone with Dr. Mordechai and all his pals at the Mossad. Get Ibrahim on the horn with his buddies inside the Palestinian Authority. Tell them to press their sources. Find out what they know. Find out who's behind all of this. Anything they can find out, the better. Tell them it's a personal request from me, and I won't forget their help.”

“I'll do that, sir.”

“Good. And how's your mom holding up? She knows you're OK?”

“No, I haven't called her yet, sir. It seemed too early, but—”

“No, no, no. As soon as we finish up here, you give her a call. You're all she's got now. You hear me?”

“Yes, sir.”

MacPherson never ceased to be his surrogate father, Bennett realized, nor would he, especially now. He'd taken the young “whippersnapper” under his wing when he was only twenty-two. He'd taught him how to become a world-class strategist. He'd praised his successes, gently warned him about his weaknesses, and was always offering Bennett friendly advice on everything from finding good restaurants in New York to finding good ski slopes in the Rockies. And given that MacPherson had achieved every goal he'd ever set for himself—and then some—his advice was something Bennett took seriously.

“Now look, I just got off the phone with Prime Minister Doron,”
the president continued.
“Here's the situation. State says all their DSS agents are dead. With this storm, we have no way to get you out of there right now. Doron's offering to send in ground forces to extract you. We'd have to get you all out of Gaza Station, of course. We can't let the IDF know where you are right now. But if all things go well, you could be home by tomorrow. We've all been talking about it, and most of the NSC thinks we should accept Doron's offer.”

Bennett sensed MacPherson wasn't quite finished with his thought, but perhaps it was just a second or two delay in the satellite transmission.

“What do you think, Jon?”
the president asked.

Bennett hesitated. He knew how much the president was investing in this Medexco deal, and it was hard for Bennett to imagine he didn't see or understand the implications of what he was asking. The last thing Bennett wanted was to be voted down by the NSC on the first question put to him. There were a lot of other issues ahead for them to deal with. But his heart was racing. It felt like every molecule in his body was shaking. His gut told him not to get the IDF involved. But was he really about to tell the president to turn down Doron's offer?

 

Merkava,
in Hebrew, meant “chariot.”

But the sixty-five-ton Merkava Mark 4 was more than a chariot. It was the IDF's premier battle tank. With a 120-mm smooth-bore cannon, three 7.62-mm machine guns, an internal 60-mm mortar, and dual smoke-grenade launchers, it turned a four-man crew into a death machine. Add night vision and thermal imaging capability, a twelve-hundred-horsepower air-cooled diesel engine, automatic fire-suppression equipment, and the most advanced nuclear, biological, and chemical protection on the face of the planet, and the Merkava was the most sophisticated weapon in the Israeli ground game. It owned the night and could smash through enemy lines at sixty kilometers an hour.

And now, while MacPherson and his National Security Council debated the merits of an Israeli ground operation, a hundred and fifty Merkavas were taking up positions on the Green Line. They were preparing to sweep into the West Bank—into Nablus, Hebron, Ramallah, and Jenin, backed up with fifty more armored personnel carriers and an array of bulldozers and close air support from Apache attack helicopters, each with rapid-fire front-mounted cannons and sixteen Hellfire missiles.

At the same time, forty-five more Merkava and American-made Abrams M1 battle tanks and armored personnel carriers were also moving into position. They were preparing to blast their way into northern Gaza through the border town of Beit Lahiya, supported by two squadrons of attack helicopters and six F-18s carrying laser-guided missiles. At the southern point of the Gaza Strip, twenty more Israeli battle tanks and troop carriers were poised to cut off the main road to the dusty little Palestinian refugee town of Rafah, the last checkpoint before the Egyptian border and the vast Sinai Peninsula.

A decision needed to be made. Prime Minister Doron wasn't at all convinced he
should
send forces into the territories, or that it would serve Israel's national interests. His Security Cabinet was actually sharply divided. But all of Doron's senior advisors agreed that Washington was about to ask them to move, and they needed to look cooperative. They needed to give the American president cover by offering to go in before they were officially asked. So that's what they were doing. By sundown, everything would be set.

 

Bennett took the plunge.

“Mr. President, with all due respect to my colleagues, it would be my strongest possible recommendation that the IDF stay the hell out of Gaza and the West Bank.”

Everyone was stunned by Bennett's intensity, including McCoy.

Was this one of the fringe benefits of having $9.6 million socked away in the bank after years of high-stakes poker on Wall Street? she wondered. He could certainly speak his mind. He trusted his instincts, his experience. It wasn't arrogance. It was clarity and conviction, though to a competitor it might be hard to make that distinction.

“Go on,”
the president said, also taken aback.

“Erin and I will be fine. Sa'id and Galishnikov will be fine. We're all safe. We don't need to be taken out of here right now. What we need to do is think strategically, not tactically. Let's keep our eye on the ball. What do we know? Arafat, Mazen, and the secretary are dead. But the peace process isn't. What's just happened is horrible, but it's not fatal to the process. Just the opposite. This could be an opportunity—not one we'd want, or plan for—but let's not kid ourselves, this changes everything.”

“How so?”
asked the president.

Bennett's voice was gaining strength.

“Sir, a week ago, we were gathered in the Oval Office arguing over whether we should be dealing with Arafat at all. Jack, you and your guys at the CIA argued Arafat was a terrorist who'd never change his ways, didn't deserve his Nobel Peace Prize, and shouldn't be elevated by a meeting with a senior U.S. official. Marsha, you made a rather eloquent case that Abu Mazen—if he were really a potential partner for peace—could never amass enough authority to lead unless we dealt only with him, and sidelined Arafat. Secretary Paine, of course, argued that sending a delegation to Gaza and not meeting with the father of the Palestinian revolution would be so insulting that Arafat would work against us to undermine the entire peace process. He insisted that we
had
to work with Arafat, or risk shaming him in front of his people and the world.”

“And?”
the president pressed.

“And now they're gone. A Palestinian extremist has just assassinated the leaders of the Palestinian revolution. This is no longer about whether the U.S. refuses to deal with one or the other. It's no longer about whether the Israelis want to deport Arafat and try to prop up Mazen. They're gone. And every Palestinian—every Arab, everyone—knows it wasn't us, or the Israelis. And now they're watching this nightmare on TV, Palestinians attacking each other.”

McCoy wasn't entirely sure where Bennett was headed. But her initial fears were quickly dissipating. She was fascinated to watch his mind work and wondered where all this was coming from.

“Mr. President, as you know, the confidential polls we've taken over the last few weeks show the vast majority of Palestinians are already tired of all the fighting,” Bennett continued, his sentences coming quickly and with passion. “A strong majority thinks Palestinian violence has become counterproductive. They
want
the intifada to end, and they
like
what they've started to hear about our oil-for-peace deal. They're tired of the killing, the poverty, and deprivations. Sure, when we asked if they'd love to wipe out Israel and control all the land if they could, of course they said yes. But when we asked if they think that's ever really going to happen, most Palestinians said no. When we asked if they were ready to settle for a little less land in return for a share of huge oil and gas revenues, a significant majority said yes.”

“So long as they still get part of Jerusalem,” Mitchell added.

“That's right,” Bennett agreed. “They still want part, if not all, of Jerusalem.”

“So what's your point, Jon?” Kirkpatrick asked.

“My point is that all of our polling was done before all this violence today. I guarantee you if it were possible to poll again tomorrow, we'd find the majority of Palestinians horrified by what's just happened and sick of what they're doing to themselves and the way they look to the rest of the world. I think we'd find the vast majority finally, firmly resolved to end this generation of violence once and for all.”

“And…” Kirkpatrick pressed.

“And we need to seize on that sentiment before it fades or changes. Mr. President, when you address the nation later this morning to mourn our losses, speak directly to the Palestinian people—offer condolences for the loss of their leadership and then ask them if this is what they want for their children and grandchildren. Tell them that ‘he who lives by the suicide bomber dies by the suicide bomber'—more artfully than that, of course. But appeal to the better angels of their nature. Are they angry at Israel? Yes. And they have a right to be. Do they want to be free from occupation? Of course. Acknowledge all that. But use your line you're always quoting to us, that there's ‘a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build up, a time for war and a time for peace.'”

“Ecclesiastes, Chapter Three,” MacPherson said, betraying the hint of a smile.

“Right—tell the Palestinians that the time for killing and tearing down is over. Enough is enough. Tell them that tomorrow has to be a new day, a time for healing and building and making peace. Appeal to them to support new leadership that will lead them in a new direction, and lead them to the state they've always wanted but never had. But for God's sake, don't tell them that the Israelis are about to invade the West Bank and Gaza. Don't tell them that IDF tanks and helicopter gunships are going to start killing Palestinians all in the name of rescuing Jon Bennett and Erin McCoy.”

The president leaned back in his chair and looked around at his senior advisors. Bennett could sense he was gaining ground, but the argument wasn't won yet.

“Jon, it's Jack Mitchell again from CIA, can you hear me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Look, I hear what you're saying. But you're sitting on a volcano, son, and it's erupting. We've got a civil war on our hands. Three different Palestinian security forces are out there trying to butcher each other, trying to seize control of the post-Arafat environment. Somebody's got to clamp down, provide some order, and do it pronto.”

“I understand, sir,” Bennett cut in. “I do. You're absolutely right—we can't just sit back and ignore what's happening here. The world can't just turn a blind eye.
Somebody
has to go in and do the dirty work. But it cannot be the Israelis. An Israeli invasion would destroy everything the president is trying to achieve.”