The Last Days (3 page)

“Perimeter Two, secure.”

“Rooftop team leader, we're secure.”

“Snapshot, secure.”

“Roger that, we're good to go.”

 

Agent Lewis stepped out of the lead limousine.

He opened the door for Secretary Paine, code-named Sunburn for his nearly albino complexion. The secretary was immediately greeted by a blinding flurry of flashbulbs and questions. The secretary simply smiled and waved. Bennett got out of his car and watched Paine button his Brooks Brothers coat, straighten his red silk power tie, and begin walking across the courtyard to center stage, trailed by Lewis and two more DSS agents. It was quite a walk—almost forty yards to the front steps of the legislative building, past three marble fountains and a huge bronze replica of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.

Following strict protocol, Bennett, McCoy, and the others would hang back and wait for the statesmen to shake hands and go inside before joining them. Over the hood of the limousine, Bennett could see Arafat emerging from the front door in a wheelchair—flanked by Prime Minister Abu Mazen with his distinctive silver hair, silver mustache, and wide-rimmed glasses.

Arafat's wheelchair was being pushed by his ubiquitous security chief, Khalid al-Rashid. What struck Bennett first was how small Arafat looked—just five foot four—and how old he looked, even from a distance. His thinning gray hair was combed back over his head, but largely covered by his trademark black-and-white checkered kaffiyah. He'd lost weight. His pale, gaunt face wore a day's worth of stubble—
why bother shaving for the Americans?
—and his lower lip and his hands shook slightly from the onset of Parkinson's disease.

Forbes
magazine said Arafat was worth a cool $1.3 billion. It seemed hard to believe. For the first time, Bennett was actually glad to be there. He found himself fascinated by this feisty, frail, strange little man in olive army fatigues, a man who for five decades had captured headlines the world over.

Mohammed Yasser Abdul-Ra'ouf Qudwa Al-Husseini.

A.k.a. Yasser Arafat.

A.k.a. Abu Amar.

Born August 24, 1929, in Egypt, or—he claimed—in Jerusalem.

Founder of Fatah in 1956.

Head of the PLO since 1969.

A 1994 Nobel Peace Prize winner who somehow had never actually made peace.

 

With Abu Mazen at his side, al-Rashid gently lowered Arafat's wheelchair.

He maneuvered down the front steps and reached inside his coat pocket to make sure it was still there, hidden by his stocky build and thick Italian leather coat.

It was an odd moment—indiscernible to anyone but a professional—but even from a distance it caught the eye of Erin McCoy and Donny Mancuso, Bennett's lead DSS agent.
Why would a security chief of al-Rashid's stature be pushing his principal's wheelchair? Why not let a bodyguard do that job while al-Rashid stayed a few steps back, surveying the scene? And why take his hand, even for a moment, off Arafat's wheelchair as he lowered it down a few steps?

Al-Rashid quickly withdrew the hand from his pocket, and again placed it back on the handle of the wheelchair. A chill rippled down McCoy's spine. Instantly suspicious, she glanced over to Mancuso, wondering if he'd seen the same thing.
But then, what exactly had she seen really? And what was she supposed to do about it? Was the Secretary of State and their team really in danger of being shot at by Yasser Arafat's personal security chief? Here? In front of the international media? The whole notion was ludicrous.
She was becoming a little paranoid on her first trip to Gaza, McCoy thought—too much history, too many briefings. She tried to drive it all from her mind and stay focused. But she couldn't. It wasn't a rational thought she was processing. It was instinct, and hers were rarely wrong.

 

It was gray and wet and cold.

Yet beads of sweat were forming on al-Rashid's forehead and upper lip.
Do I wait for the secretary to cross the courtyard? Do I wait until after Arafat greets him? Or would that just provoke a devastating U.S. attack against Palestine? Look what the Americans have just done to Iraq. Is now the right time? Is this the legacy I want to bring upon my family, my people? And yet…

Arafat began coughing violently in the damp air. Al-Rashid stopped pushing the wheelchair and again reached into his coat pocket. McCoy and Mancuso tensed as the secretary finished crossing the huge courtyard, though for some reason each hesitated to say anything to the lead DSS agents up ahead. It was a false alarm. Out of al-Rashid's pocket came a white cotton handkerchief, which he handed to his leader. A moment later, the secretary reached the portico, draped with Palestinian and American flags. He stood in front of Arafat and Mazen, smiled and reached down to shake the old man's trembling hand. A hundred cameras snapped a thousand pictures. McCoy began to breathe a sigh of relief—but suddenly al-Rashid plunged his hand back into his coat pocket, and pulled out a long red wire with an ignition switch.

McCoy and Mancuso reacted immediately—
“Get down, get down!”
—tackling Bennett, Galishnikov, and Sa'id and trying to cover them with their own bodies. The secretary and his two DSS agents just stopped and stared, frozen for a fraction of a second in utter disbelief. Like the herd of international journalists watching in horror, they were unable to move, unable to react as al-Rashid screamed out,
“Allahu Akbar”—“God is Great”
and pulled the trigger.

The massive explosion ripped through the courtyard. The sound was deafening. The entire facade of the legislative building began to collapse. Blood and body parts began showering down from the sky. In the blink of an eye, in a fraction of a second, on live worldwide television, the two highest-ranking Palestinian leaders and the U.S. Secretary of State were obliterated in a massive fireball.

Bennett landed hard on the cold, wet pavement and felt McCoy slam down on his back. They were largely shielded from the full effects of the blast by the limousine beside them. Now they tried to shield themselves from the falling debris. Fire and smoke seemed to suck up all the oxygen. Bennett couldn't think, couldn't breathe. A severed, bloody hand landed inches from his face. He turned away, and underneath the car, through a gap in concrete barriers, could see the hailstorm of rubble and glass crashing down on the open courtyard—a grisly scene unlike anything he'd ever witnessed. And then, in an instant—as quickly as it had happened—it was over. It was quiet. And only then did the irony begin to dawn on Jon Bennett.

Yasser Arafat was dead, at the hands of a Palestinian suicide bomber.

“Code Red, Code Red—Sunburn is gone, I repeat, Sunburn is gone.”

Donny Mancuso shouted into his wrist-mounted microphone.
He
was now the special agent in charge. Most of the secretary's detail lay dead or dying. The rest lay on the ground, weapons drawn—a combination of Uzis, MP-5 submachine guns and Sig-Sauer P228s. They scanned the scene and tried to make sense of it all. Neither he nor they had any idea what had really just happened, or what other threats they might face. But it was Mancuso's job to make sure they didn't get blindsided again.

By motorcade—even at high speeds—it would take nearly an hour to get the wounded back to medical facilities in Jerusalem. Tel Aviv would take at least ninety minutes, maybe more. Some might not make it that long. Several had third-degree burns. Others faced massive loss of blood.

 

Lightning flashed across the dark sky.

Thunder rumbled overhead and the winds were picking up. Another torrential downpour was coming any moment. McCoy began to stir. She shook glass off her back and out of her hair, then leaned inside the open limo door beside her. She reached under the driver's seat, and grabbed her Uzi. She popped in a thirty-two-round clip of 9-mm ammo and stuffed two others in her jacket pocket. Bennett could feel his heart racing.

 

Mancuso grabbed his MP-5.

He crawled forward—around McCoy and Bennett—to open the front door of Snapshot and grab the satellite phone off the front seat. He speed dialed the State Department's Operations Center back in Washington—code-named Black Tower—and connected with Agent Robbie Trakowski, the night-watch officer.

“Black Tower, this is Snapshot,”
said Mancuso.
“We are Code Red—I repeat, we are Code Red. We have extensive casualties. Requesting immediate air support and extraction. Acknowledge.”

He began to hear sirens in the distance.

“Roger that, Snapshot. We've got you on a live video feed from the Predator over your location. Let me check on air support and extraction. Stand by one.”

 

It sounded like a few firecrackers, at first.

Then three machine-gun rounds exploded into the open limo door above him. Someone was firing at them from the street. Eight or nine more rounds riddled the engine block just a few feet away from him. The crackle of automatic-weapons fire was getting louder, and closer. Crowds were running in all directions. People were screaming. All around them, DSS agents and PA policemen were dropping. Bennett suddenly felt someone pushing him under Snapshot's chassis. It was McCoy, trying to shield him from the gun battle erupting around them.

A man in a red kaffiyah was sprinting toward them—toward McCoy. He was screaming something in Arabic and firing a 9-mm automatic pistol. McCoy's body blocked most of Bennett's view to the street—but not all of it. He saw McCoy click the safety off her Uzi and spray repeated bursts of return fire. The man dropped to the pavement not far from the open gates. Bennett tried to breathe again. That's when it hit him—he had no weapon.

Suddenly—a flash—a puff of white smoke—then he heard the sizzle.

“RPG,”
McCoy shouted.

It was too late. From a darkened window across the street, a rocket-propelled grenade streaked across the top of the crowd, through the wrought-iron gates and into the open door of the secretary's limousine. Globe Trotter erupted. The explosion blew out the windows and ripped off the roof. Glass and shrapnel were flying everywhere. Flames and thick black smoke poured from the wreckage.

Bennett saw six more DSS agents incinerated in front of him. He'd have slipped into shock, but everything was happening too fast. More machine-gun fire erupted from windows across the street as McCoy, Mancuso and his assault teams from the Suburbans behind them fought back.

“Black Tower, this is Snapshot. We are now under fire.”

“We acknowledge, Snapshot. You need to stand by for a moment and we'll—”

“Negative, negative. We are taking heavy fire from unknown assailants. Machine-gun fire and RPGs. Sunburn's gone. Globe Trotter's gone. We're taking heavy fire. We need close air support and extraction teams immediately—acknowledge.”

The sky was getting darker. The winds were getting stronger, whipping through the courtyard, fueling the raging fires all around them.

“Snapshot, this is Black Tower. Air support from the Med is a no-go. I repeat—”

“Why not?”
Mancuso shouted.
“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Calm down, Snapshot.”

Mancuso let out a string of obscenities.

“Don't tell me to calm down. We're out in the open and you're telling me you guys won't send us air support?”

A deafening crash of thunder shook everyone. Bitter cold driving rains began pelting down on them. Bullets ricocheted off the pavement all around them. Now shots were coming from a smashed open window on the third floor of the PLC administrative building towering over their position. Mancuso ducked closer to the limo and unleashed several bursts toward the windows.

“Rooftop Three, Rooftop Three, this is Snapshot—we're taking sniper fire. Third floor. Window eight.”

“Got it, Snapshot.”

A U.S. countersniper agent on an opposite roof pivoted hard, aimed his Remington 700 sniper rifle, and fired twice. The shooter's head exploded. Mancuso, however, had no time for thank-yous. Washington was trying to get his attention again.

“Snapshot, you need to execute Alpha Bravo.”

“Negative, negative. You don't understand. We're pinned down. Taking sniper fire. We cannot move.”

“Snapshot, listen to me—
listen.
There's nothing we can do right now. Nothing. The storms over you right now are even worse out in the Med. Flight ops onboard the
Reagan
and the
Roosevelt
are completely shut down. They can't risk sending in birds right now. You guys are going to have to shoot your way out of this thing until we can get you some help. I'm sorry.”

CRACK, CRACK, CRACK.

The shots echoed through the courtyard. Mancuso instinctively looked up to the roof—only to see Rooftop Three falling through the air and smashing onto the pavement. He cursed and threw the phone back into the car in disgust. How exactly was he supposed to get Bennett, Galishnikov, and Sa'id to safety? How was he supposed to get his own men out?

 

Three men now rushed their position from across the street.

McCoy was out of ammo. Bennett was unarmed. So were Galishnikov and Sa'id, pinned down behind him. The three gunmen—their faces covered in black hoods—were running hard, unleashing bursts of AK-47 fire from the hip as they came.

“
Donny!”
McCoy screamed.

Mancuso looked left and unloaded an entire clip. Two attackers went down. The third kept coming. McCoy went for her spare clips. Bennett could see she wasn't going to make it. This guy was no more than twenty yards away and coming fast. He cleared through the gates, and came up the driveway. Bullets whizzed past him, but didn't stop him. He raised his machine gun. Bennett stared at his eyes. They were wild with rage. Bennett froze. He couldn't move. Couldn't think. Couldn't run. Everything seemed to go into slow motion.

Then he heard it, three loud cracks from a rooftop. CRACK, CRACK, CRACK. It was another American countersniper. The third attacker crashed to the ground. His AK-47 came skidding across the bloody pavement. It came to a stop just a few feet away from where Bennett lay. Bennett hesitated for a moment, then strained to reach it from under the limo. He couldn't. It was too far away. He glanced over at McCoy. She seemed momentarily paralyzed. He'd never seen her like this and it rattled him. He looked back at the gun, then suddenly, without looking, without thinking, Bennett scrambled out from under the car, into the crossfire, grabbed the AK-47 and brought it to her.

“
Here—you might need this,
” he shouted over the gunfire.

The gesture seemed to snap her back into the moment.

“
No, you keep it,
” she said, wiping soot from her eyes. “
I'm OK.
”

She now reloaded her Uzi, then swiveled around, reached inside the car, and grabbed several more ammo clips from a drawer under the driver's seat. She stuffed them in her pockets, and turned back to him.

“
OK, Bennett. Back under the car.
”

“No way, Erin, we've got too much—”

“Shut up, Jon, and get under the car. You're the only game in town now. It's my job to keep you alive, and I haven't got the time to argue.”

Her glare was intense. She wasn't kidding. Bennett did what he was told. McCoy turned and began firing at militants outside the gates. Bennett got under the car and looked to his right. What remained of the front section of the PLC building was now engulfed in flames. The searing heat was unbearable. He could smell the burnt flesh. He could taste the acrid smoke filling the courtyard. But he could barely breathe and his eyes were stinging with soot and dust.

 

“Snapshot, this is Rooftop One, over.”

Mancuso could barely hear over the gunfire. But it was the head of his countersniper unit. He had something urgent. Mancuso took the call. He stopped firing for a moment and engaged his wrist-mounted microphone.

“Rooftop, this is Snapshot—go.”

“Snapshot, we're taking heavy fire up here. But something's going on over in the courtyard of that mosque across the street. Can't see much from here. But there's a crowd gathering down there—around the corner and down the street about a block from your location.”

“Roger that, Rooftop. Any PA cops over there?”

“Negative, Snapshot. Regular PA police have taken heavy casualties. They seem to have scattered. The radios are filled with chatter that they're bringing in reinforcements. But I don't like the looks of things from up here.”

“You think the mob's headed here?”

“Can't say for sure. But yeah, that's my guess.”

“Roger that, Rooftop. Keep your eyes open and stand by.”

Mancuso tried to process the situation. They'd all been through years of intense training for an array of worst-case scenarios. They'd all been thoroughly briefed on the possible threats they could face on this trip—specifically the threat that radical Islamic groups opposed to the peace process might stage some kind of an attack or disruption. Perhaps a car bomb along the motorcade route to delay or cancel the secretary's meeting with Arafat. Perhaps a suicide bombing in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv or Haifa to distract attention. Perhaps Molotov cocktails thrown at the motorcade, or a skirmish with Israeli border guards, or an angry anti-U.S. march through the streets of Gaza City or one of the refugee camps. All these had been thoroughly analyzed and war-gamed.

But no one in ITA—the Bureau of Diplomatic Security's Intelligence and Threat Analysis Center—or the Tel Aviv field office had talked about, much less planned for, a scenario like this: an inside job by an Arafat loyalist and a coordinated, multilevel attack from forces loyal to…to whom? Who was behind this? Who were they really fighting? They knew Palestinian frustration against Arafat had been intensifying for years. Anger among many Palestinian Islamic leaders at the U.S. for the war against Iraq was to be expected. And in the past few days, Israeli electronic intercepts were picking up all kinds of chatter of dissent against the resumption of peace talks. But neither the Israelis nor the Americans had picked up any serious evidence of internal threats against Arafat himself, certainly not from within the PA's security forces, much less from within Force 17.

Even “outside” Palestinian threats were extremely rare. In 1998, Arafat's security forces cracked down on Islamic militants and put Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin under house arrest. At that point, a Hamas faction known as the Izzedine al Qassam Brigades issued a pamphlet in the territories. They warned the PA to back off or risk igniting the “fires of revenge” against Arafat and “the horrors of civil war” in the West Bank and Gaza. Arafat did back off and other top Hamas leaders publicly distanced themselves from the threats. Nothing happened, and the incident was largely forgotten.

In the fall of 2002, a series of death threats forced Abu Mazen—then serving as Arafat's top political deputy in the PLO—to leave his home in Ramallah and seek safe haven in Jordan. Some said the threats came from Islamic factions because Mazen had publicly denounced the practice of suicide bombing and called the intifada's use of violence against Israel a disastrous mistake that set back the Palestinian cause by years. Others said the death threats came from PA factions close to Arafat after rumors that Mazen might be plotting to overthrow Arafat. Mazen heatedly denied the rumors, but it was clear someone was trying to take him out. Suddenly Mazen was on an extended trip to Jordan, Egypt, and the Persian Gulf—anywhere but the West Bank and Gaza.