The Last Jihad (31 page)

As the two men entered the house, Dr. Mordechai instructed the Mossad agents to take up positions in front of the house, then quickly closed and dead-bolted the door behind them. But then, rather than head for the stairs, the old man turned down one of the darkened hallways, proceeded to the end, opened what looked like a closet door, and then bid them to follow him inside.

“Ladies and gentlemen, let me show you something I designed into this house to have a little fun,” Dr. Mordechai said with a smile. “I think you’ll get a kick out of it.”

Is this guy nuts?
thought Bennett. But curious, they all packed themselves into the “closet” and then—at their host’s bizarre request—closed the door behind them. The minute they did, they could hear the hydraulics kick in. This was no coat closet. It was an elevator, and they were headed up. Moments later, the door opened into the walk-in closet of Dr. Mordechai’s office, on the east wing of the sprawling house. They all then followed the old man through his private office, past his bedroom, past the kitchen, down the hall, and into the living room, under the gorgeous glass dome in the ceiling.

Sure enough, thought Bennett, this place was as mysterious as the man who owned it.

Ruiz took evasive action.

With the SEAL and NEST teams holding on for their lives, he banked hard to the left, then pulled up, climbing to three thousand feet, then dove back towards the deck and banked hard right.

BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP
.

“He’s fired. Sky Ranch, we are under attack. I repeat—we are under attack.”

Ruiz took the chopper up again sharply, then banked hard left. Just then a Russian AA-10 air-to-air missile swiped by his face at Mach four, missing the Seahawk by inches.

“Sky Ranch, Sky Ranch, we are under attack. We are under attack. Where the hell is our cover?”

“Striker One Six this is Lone Ranger and Tonto. We are inbound at Mach two. Ready to trash a bandit.”

BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP.

Another missile was in the air. Every warning tone in the cockpit seemed to be screaming for help.

“He’s fired again. Fired again. Lone Ranger, where are you?”

The Seahawk now shot towards the heavens—a thousand feet, two thousand, three thousand—then Ruiz again plunged the chopper towards the ground, away from the incoming missile.

Suddenly, his copilot screamed bloody murder.

“Break left, break left—GO, GO, GO—NOW, NOW, NOW.”

The lead pilot yanked so hard on the yoke he practically tore it out of the floor—and just in time. Bodies slammed against the left side of the chopper, but all heads turned right—only to see another heat-seeking AA-10 missile come slicing past the window, hit the ground and explode into a massive fireball below them, engulfing the entire chopper in flames, smoke, and sand.

Warning buzzers and flashing lights suddenly filled the chopper.

“We’re hit. We’re hit. Sky Ranch, we are on fire—I repeat—we are on fire.”

Ruiz instinctively pulled back on the yoke to gain altitude and get away from the fireball below. It was a risk. It would give the Russian MiG a clearer shot. If the bogey on their tail was in fact a MiG-29, it no doubt had four more AA-10s ready to blow them to kingdom come. But Ruiz didn’t have much choice. Moreover, if he could get the Seahawk turned around, perhaps he could fire off a couple of his own Hellfire missiles and take this guy out. It might be their only chance, and they weren’t ready to go down without a fight. If they were going to die, they were going to take this Iraqi with them.

Suddenly, two F-14 Tomcats screamed past overhead, missing the rising Seahawk by less than a hundred yards. They were flying low, hard and fast, and right into the MiG.

“Look out,”
screamed the copilot.

“What was that?”
yelled Ruiz.

“Hi ho, Silver, boys
,” the lead Tomcat pilot declared.
“The good guys are here.”

“Tonto, too,”
yelled his wingman.
“Me get bad guys, Kemosabe.”

“You got him?”

“I’ve got tone.”

“Take him, Tonto.”

“Fox two, fox two.”

Two AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles exploded from the side of Tonto’s F-14.

The two planes jerked back into a vertical climb as the Sidewinders sizzled towards their prey. Everyone in the Seahawk was glued to the radar screen in front of them, indicating the MiG on their tail, the Tomcats above them.

Then they saw it happen.

The two Sidewinders tore through the cockpit of the MiG, erupting in an incredible explosion that lit up the sky and could be seen for miles.

“You da man, Tonto.”

“Who da man?”

“You da man.”

“Great job, guys—and thanks,” shouted Ruiz, breathing a quick sigh of relief while simultaneously trying to assess the damage to his chopper.

“Who was that masked man?” whooped the Lone Ranger.

“Keep it focused boys,” yelled the controller on the E-3.

“Roger that, Sky Ranch,” Tonto responded. “We are scannin’ our radar. Nothing yet, but we’ll keep looking.”

“Striker One Six, this is Sky Ranch. What’s your condition?”

“Sky Ranch, this is Striker One Six. Looks like we’re not hit. Repeat, not hit. Close call but we’re OK. Proceeding with mission as directed.”

“Roger that. And godspeed, boys.”

Everyone in this room knew the danger they all were in.

In a few hours—the middle of the night, Israeli time—the President of the United States would explain to the entire world the threat Iraq now posed to her allies and the West. But for now, there was business to be done and questions to be answered.

At eighty, Dr. Mordechai was gray, balding, slight and frail. But behind the thick, bushy beard and round, wiry gold spectacles were warm eyes and a quick mind.

As the night wore on, Bennett grew more and more intrigued with this sharp, insightful old man and his two comrades in arms. They covered Doron’s background, and Arafat’s and the possible contours of an oil-for-peace deal.

But what Bennett really wanted to know was this: How was it possible that a secular Russian Jew and a moderate Ramallah Muslim found themselves in a joint business venture for which an evangelical American president was suddenly prepared to wage both war and peace?

The unassuming, owlish Sa’id took that one, in his distinct Palestinian Arab accent, as thick as his mustache.

“Jon, Vaclav Havel once said, ‘The real test of a man is not when he plays the role that he wants for himself, but when he plays the role destiny has for him.’ I believe that. It was not my choice as a Palestinian Arab to go into business with a Russian Jew. Far from it. But I believe that something larger than myself is at work here. Maybe it is fate. Or destiny. Or God. I don’t know. But I truly believe that something great and wonderful and lasting is about to be born here—a peace and prosperity that will stun the world and dazzle even our own, cynical selves.”

Sa’id looked away from Bennett and stared out the window at the Dome of the Rock, all lit up and glistening like gold.

“Jon, I grew up a stranger in a strange land—my own. Occupied at various times by the Babylonians and the Persians, the Egyptians and the Ottomans, the British and the Jordanians and now the Israelis. My father was a real estate agent. What can I say? He was right. Real estate is about three key factors—location, location, location. Until a few years ago, I always wondered, what’s the big fuss about? Why are we all fighting about land that has so little intrinsic value? If you want to fight about something, you know, fight about the Gulf. Where there’s gas. Where there’s oil. Where there’s wealth. To me, that makes sense. But, of course, the battle has always been the hottest here—in
this
place, on
this
land, in
these
hills, in
this
city—even before we discovered oil and gas. Why? I’ve never been able to explain it. But I’ve come to believe that there’s something supernatural at work here, Jon. Unseen forces are at work—angels and demons, powers of darkness and light—that move quietly and mysteriously, like the wind. You can’t see wind. You can’t hear it. You can’t taste it. But it’s real. You can see its effects. And so it is with these unseen forces battling for control of the holy land. They’re real. They’re alive. They’re shaping events here, turning some men into heroes and others into fanatics. And I believe they’re locked in some kind of cosmic, winner-take-all battle that is yet to be decided. I don’t pretend to understand it. But I believe it. Because I live here. And I know this is not a normal place.”

The room was completely silent, save for the crackling of the fire in the fireplace.

“And somehow—don’t ask me how—I guess I just believe deep down inside of me that somehow good will triumph over evil. That this oil deal is going to go through. That we’re going to help people become richer than they’ve ever imagined. That we’re going to help people see the value of working together in a common market, for the sake of their children, even if they and their parents and their parents’ parents have been at war for generations. Look at the French and the Germans. Look at the Japanese and the Koreans. They’ve made it work. There’s no reason we can’t do it. And I just have this little dream that the time to do it is now.”

Bennett thought about that for a moment, then looked straight into the warm brown eyes of his friend, Ibrahim Sa’id.

“And if we are all incinerated in a nuclear inferno? What will you say then?”

McCoy winced at Bennett’s bluntness. But Sa’id didn’t blink.

“At least I died on the side of the angels, not the demons.”

“Reed—go.”

“Sir, it’s Maxwell.”

“Talk to me.”

“There’s more.”

“Like what?”

“We’ve been scrubbing Secretary Iverson’s phone and bank records for the last ten years. It’s not pretty.”

“Let me guess—off-shore accounts in the Caribbean.”

“You got it. Five of them, actually. All in the Cayman Islands. All routed to banks in Basel and Zurich.”

“How much did he send the monsters?”

“It’s gonna take more time, sir.”

“Ballpark. Millions?”

“No, sir. Looks like tens of millions.”

Stuart Iverson was under house arrest.

He was subject to almost round-the-clock interrogation by the FBI at an undisclosed location near Camp David. But almost no one knew it. Not even the National Security Advisor. Or the White House chief of staff. Or the vice president.

Most of the White House and Treasury Department staff believed the secretary was doing a top-secret assignment for the president, related to the showdown with Russia and must not be disturbed under any circumstances. Which wasn’t entirely untrue.

For the time being, the Deputy Treasury Secretary was handling all other issues, and had direct access to Corsetti and the president if necessary. Communication by Iverson or anyone but the lead FBI agent with him was strictly forbidden by a freshly signed and aggressively enforced Executive Order.

At midnight, Dr. Mordechai declared a verbal ceasefire.

Breakfast was at eight
A.M.
sharp. Their discussions would resume then. They all packed up their notes and headed to guest rooms in the east wing of this incredible house.

Black called home—a local call, his house being just a few blocks from the Tel Aviv University campus—to check in with his wife, Katrina, and his three little girls. He hadn’t seen them for more than a week. They were scared. And they didn’t know the half of it. He couldn’t tell them the magnitude of the threat Israel now faced. And he wouldn’t even if he could. Katrina understood war. She had gas masks and water and flashlights and supplies. But there was no way he would tell her that she and the kids might really be obliterated by an Iraqi nuclear missile. It was just too horrible to contemplate. And they needed their rest.

They missed him. He missed them more. The good news, at least was that in January—less than two months away—they were all leaving Israel to head back to the States for a long-overdue, two-week vacation at the Polynesian Resort in Disney World. Black promised himself right there and then that if they all lived through this nightmare, he would let nothing come in the way of his family and the Magic Kingdom.

He was getting too old for this job, and he knew it. There’d been a time when saving the world from terrorism was his sole ambition. Now he just wanted some sand, some sun, some piña coladas and some time to tickle his kids and have a quiet, candlelight dinner with his beautiful, patient, long-suffering wife.

Bennett, meanwhile, shut down his laptop, went back to his room, and dashed off a quick email to his mom. He asked for an update on his dad and apologized—again—for being out of the country and unable to come home. For one of the few times in his life, he actually missed his parents. And the thought of losing his father and never being able to say good-bye to him ever again made him sick.

In no mood to sleep, and in serious need of some fresh air to clear his head, Bennett ambled back down the hall, through the living room and out onto the limestone veranda overlooking the Old City. McCoy was sitting out there, wrapped in a thick wool sweater, cleaning the 9mm Beretta she kept in her pocketbook.

“You really know how to use that thing?” Bennett quipped.

She raised her right eyebrow. “You want a demonstration?”

“I’ll just take your word for it.”

Thunder rumbled overhead. Bennett leaned against the wrought-iron railing and stared out at the twinkling lights of the Old City and the gleaming Dome of the Rock.