The Last Days (2 page)

 

Thirty minutes later, they sped along Highway One toward Jerusalem.

Through driving rains. Past huge green road signs in Hebrew, Arabic, and English. Past the rusted shells of armored personnel carriers destroyed in the 1948 war. Past roads that would lead them, if they wanted, a few miles and a few thousand years away to ancient biblical towns like Jaffa and Bethlehem and Jericho.

Two blue-and-white Israeli police cars led the way. Two more brought up the rear. In between were a jet black Lincoln Town Car carrying the advance team from the embassy, two bulletproof Cadillac limousines, two black Chevy Suburbans carrying heavily armed agents from the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, and four vans of reporters who would beam the historic words and images to a global audience desperate for some good news from the war-torn Middle East.

The first limousine—code-named Globe Trotter—carried the Secretary of State and his aides. Bennett and McCoy rode in the second limo—code-named Snapshot—joined by two old friends upon whose wisdom they now greatly counted. The first was Dmitri Galishnikov, the hard-charging CEO of Medexco, Israel's fastest-growing oil and gas company. The second was Dr. Ibrahim Sa'id, the soft-spoken, Harvard-educated chairman of PPG, the Palestinian Petroleum Group, which had made a fortune in the Gulf and now had everyone in the West Bank and Gaza buzzing with excitement.

“Miss Erin, I must say, you look like an angel—like my wife on our wedding day,” Galishnikov boomed. “As for you, Point Man, you look like hell.”

That got a laugh from everyone, even Bennett.

“Seriously, how are you feeling, Jonathan?” Sa'id asked. “We were worried about you. It's a miracle that you're alive, much less here.”

It was a miracle. The last time they'd been together, they'd been under attack by Iraqi terrorists. Bennett took two AK-47 rounds at point-blank range. He'd practically bled to death before being airlifted to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. Three weeks of recovery and rehab later, he was still not 100 percent.

“Good days and bad, you know.” Bennett shrugged. “But it's good to see you two again.”

“You, too, my friend,” Sa'id agreed. “And your mother? How is she?”

McCoy watched Bennett shift uncomfortably.

“Well, she's not exactly thrilled about me coming back, that's for sure. Dad's heart attack, the funeral, what happened to me—she's been through a lot. But she's hanging in there. I'll head down to Orlando to see her for a few days when we get back.”

“That's good.” Sa'id smiled. “You're a good son, Jonathan.”

Bennett wasn't so sure about that, but he said nothing.

 

An e-mail arrived in a small gift shop on Gibraltar.

It was quickly forwarded to a wood-carving shop in Gaza. Soon it drew the attention of an immaculately well-dressed young man by the name of Khalid al-Rashid. To anyone but him, the message would mean nothing, just an old family relative sending greetings for the holidays. But to the third most powerful man in Palestine, it could only mean one thing—his date with destiny had arrived.

 

The motorcade began to climb the foothills leading to Jerusalem.

That night, the U.S. delegation would take up two entire floors of the King David Hotel, overlooking Mount Zion, the stone walls of the Old City, and the Mount of Olives just beyond them. Tomorrow, they'd have a long working lunch with Israeli prime minister David Doron. But soon, they would actually be sitting in Gaza City, overlooking the stormy Mediterranean, drinking coffee and eating baklava with Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat, and his hand-chosen, silver-haired successor, Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mazen.

It would be a long day. Diplomatic formalities and endless pleasantries would likely take until lunch. They'd eat lentil soup and lamb until they couldn't stuff down another scrap of pita. Then they'd get down to business.

At the heart of the proposed treaty was the discovery of black gold deep underneath the Mediterranean—a massive and spectacular tract of oil and natural gas off the coasts of Israel and Gaza that could offer unprecedented wealth for every Muslim, Christian, and Jew in Israel and Palestine. And the American message they were about to deliver was as daring as it was direct: both sides must put behind them centuries of bitter, violent hostilities to sign a serious peace agreement. Both sides must truly cooperate on drilling, pumping, refining, and shipping the newly found petroleum. Both sides must work together to develop a dynamic, new, integrated economy to take full advantage of this stunning opportunity. Then—and only then—the United States would help underwrite the billions of dollars of loan guarantees needed to turn the dream into reality.

Bennett's “oil for peace” strategy was controversial, to be sure. It shifted the discussion from simple “land for peace”—long the central premise of fruitless diplomacy between the Israelis and Palestinians—to a shared vision of economic growth and wealth creation. Secret polls commissioned by the White House found 63 percent of Palestinians in favor of the idea, though 71 percent opposed U.S. military action in Iraq. More troubling: 14 percent of Palestinians—the hard-core Islamic militants—vowed to stop the American peace process at all costs.

The key was Yasser Arafat. He'd repeatedly hailed the discovery of petroleum off Gaza as “a gift of God to our people” and the basis of “a strong foundation for a Palestinian state.” But the big question remained: was the isolated and aging Arafat—at eighty-one, now in the cold, cruel winter of his life—finally ready to make peace with the Jews? On that, the jury was still out. But that's why Bennett and his team were there.

 

Khalid al-Rashid was born on June 6, 1967.

It was the day the shooting started, a struggle the Jews called the Six Day War, and the Arabs called Al-Nakbah—“The Disaster.”

Raised in an apartment over a woodworking shop on the outskirts of Gaza City, al-Rashid was no maker of tourist trinkets. That was his father's work, before he was gunned down by Israeli soldiers during the first intifada, the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation, in February of 1988. The son had risen through the ranks of Force 17, Arafat's
Fatah
security apparatus—first as an errand boy, a driver, then a bodyguard, and now Arafat's personal security chief.

It was al-Rashid who now ensured the survival of Arafat from all threats, foreign and domestic. It was al-Rashid who handpicked Arafat's security team, grilled them, trained them, and either rewarded or punished them for their loyalty to him, and to the cause of liberating all of Palestine from the River to the Sea. And though the Israelis and Americans were not yet able to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, it was in fact al-Rashid who for years had personally selected and then paid the family of each suicide bomber who slipped across the Green Line into an Israeli coffee shop or pizza parlor or bus station or elementary school to blow themselves up, kill as many Jews as possible, and deliver themselves into the arms of Allah.

But this was different. Now, with the Secretary of State and U.S. delegation en route from Jerusalem and the whole world watching, al-Rashid sat in his father's home, thinking the unthinkable.

 

Ahead of the motorcade lay the Erez Checkpoint.

The Gaza Strip. No-man's-land.

Here in a sliver seven miles wide and twenty miles long lived more than a million souls—half under the age of fifteen—and the population would double over the next decade. Six in ten men were unemployed. Most families lived in refugee camps amidst unimaginable squalor. The Strip was a breeding ground for radical Islam and volcanic hatred of Israelis and Americans that could erupt in a firestorm at any moment—without warning—and often did.

The motorcade slowed. Bennett's heart beat a little faster. Jittery Israeli soldiers, their M-16s locked and loaded, opened the steel barricades and guided them past concrete bunkers, guard towers, searchlights, and barbed-wire fences. Border guards in Humvees and army Jeeps mounted with heavy machine guns watched their every move. It was an eerie experience. For they were leaving Israel proper and entering the most dangerous and densely populated hundred forty square miles on the face of the earth.

 

Secretary of State Tucker Paine took Bennett's call.

Bennett wanted to brief him on his conversations with Ibrahim Sa'id, and Paine needed to sound interested. Paine didn't appreciate the
New York Times
profile that made Bennett, not Paine himself, appear the mastermind of this deal. He felt quite sure his unattributed quotes had done their appropriate damage, reminding Bennett who was in charge. But he also had to watch his step. The president trusted Bennett a great deal, and the last thing Paine needed was more trouble from the Oval Office.

Indeed, Tucker Paine had been dispatched for this delicate mission precisely because he could truthfully tell Arafat how vehemently he had opposed the president's decision to attack Iraq. Who better to win a hearing with Arafat than a Secretary of State who'd almost been fired for his heated opposition to the president's policy of “regime change,” a policy that had left Baghdad in ruins and the Atlantic alliance in tatters.

Time was running out.

But al-Rashid couldn't think clearly. He knew what they wanted. It was something he'd considered for months. But the implications were enormous.

The American, after all, was bringing a death sentence for the Palestinian revolution. Did he think they could be bought off? Had the Americans no idea what this revolution was all about, what fueled these fires? Why not simply destroy this infidel and send the world a message. Surely that was a cause worth dying for, was it not? And yet, who was more culpable—the infidel, or the betrayer?

How could he do it? How could he even consider this meeting? How could he even consider cutting a deal with these devils? How could he betray the martyrs—the blood of al-Rashid's own father—now, of all times, with their brothers decimated in Baghdad? For what? To make the Palestinians rich? To let their sons become fat and happy? To let their daughters grow up to drink Starbucks and listen to Britney Spears and shop at Victoria's Secret? Again al-Rashid glanced at the e-mail. He knew what the answer must be. He could not merely send little girls to do the cause of justice. It was time to be a man. It was time to do the job himself.

 

The motorcade roared through Beit Lahiya.

Uniformed policemen of the Palestinian Authority—commonly referred to as the PA—manned checkpoints at every major intersection. But it hardly made Bennett feel more secure. The PA was arguably the most dysfunctional pseudogovernment on earth. It remained Yasser Arafat's private fiefdom. The security forces operated at his pleasure. If Arafat said you were safe—and meant it—you probably were. If not, you'd be advised to stay as far away as possible. So “supplementing” the Palestinian police presence were heavily armed American DSS agents, strategically positioned along the way. Not since President Clinton's visit to Gaza in December 1998 had security been this tight. Anti-American sentiment was running high. But so, too, were hopes that a Palestinian state might not be so far off.

 

They gathered in the White House Situation Room.

National Security Advisor Marsha Kirkpatrick and White House Chief of Staff Bob Corsetti drank coffee and watched the live coverage. From a Fox camera positioned on the roof of a hotel near the PLC headquarters, they could see the motorcade coming down Salah El Din Street, packed with crowds spilling into the road despite the metal barricades and hundreds of Palestinian security forces set to work a double shift. A moment later, they could see the motorcade turn onto Omar El Mukhtar Street, past the Great Mosque on the right and the Welaya Mosque on the left.

Just past Jumal Abdel-Nasser Street, the motorcade finally turned into the gates of the PLC's executive compound, past a dozen Palestinian flags snapping in the winter winds. A CNN shot from the roof of the Rashad Shawa Cultural Centre across the street showed the vehicles pulling into a huge courtyard. Two new five-story glass-and-steel administrative buildings stood to the left and right. Each was connected to an impressive three-story legislative headquarters upon which towered a thirty-foot gold dome. The entourage pulled into the compound's semicircular driveway, and parked behind huge, waist-high concrete barriers designed to minimize—if not fully prevent—the prospect of Israeli tanks driving straight into a cabinet meeting and obliterating the Palestinian Authority. DSS agents jumped out of the last Suburban. They took up positions around the secretary's limousine and ran a sector check.

“Globe Trotter is secure,” lead DSS agent Doug Lewis told his team.

“Blueprint, secure.”

“Fog Horn, secure.”

“Perimeter One, secure.”