Twelve Days (6 page)

Hearing about the NIE didn’t instantly send her back down the hole. But it did make her remember what those days had been like, and to realize she was at risk. If this project failed, she’d lose everything. The Iranians would have the bomb, and she would know she had missed her chance to stop them.

She forced herself to retreat. To think. She still had Mason and his team. She needed a new way to use them. She drove east and south from Jerusalem into the desert, to the Dead Sea. The lowest point on earth, hundreds of feet below sea level. A depression, yes. Mountains on either side flanked the grandly named sea, in reality nothing more than a narrow salt-filled lake. Third-rate hotels clustered in a resort community midway down its shore, offering Dead Sea mudbaths and all-you-can-eat buffets, salmonella included. They catered to Russian immigrants and pensioners who didn’t have the money to go anywhere else. Yet Salome felt strangely rejuvenated when she came to this ugly place. Maybe because of the sulfurous warmth. The fear that threatened her was
cold.

On her third day, she watched Russian television, the foreign minister complaining about the White House. “The Americans think they can do
whatever they like,” he said. “They invade this country and that country. They pay no attention to national sovereignty. One day they will see the rest of the world does not jump to their drum.”

They invade this country and that country . . .

Only the American military was powerful enough to destroy Iran’s weapons program. But the White House didn’t see the danger Iran posed. Or it feared another war in the Middle East too much to respond. Salome needed to force the United States to see the risk of allowing Iran to build a bomb. If the Iranians weren’t yet ready to threaten America, she would threaten it for them. She would
foretell
the future, in order to prevent it.

She spent the next day figuring out realistic ways she might bait the United States. Then she flew halfway around the world to meet Mason in Indonesia. He told her she was insane.

Then he told her what she needed to do to succeed.

—

She knew she’d have to tell Duberman face-to-face what she wanted. They rarely saw each other. The rest of his inner circle would notice if they spent too much time together. Anyway, he was married now. She had seen his wife Orli in magazines. She was Israeli, the daughter of Russian emigrants. In the photos, she was absurdly gorgeous, with long blond hair and hazel eyes. Salome hadn’t been invited to the wedding. Hah.

Salome came to Duberman’s mansion in Tel Aviv, catching a glimpse of Orli on her way to do whatever supermodels did in the morning. Pilates? A Botox refresher? Orli wore a long black T-shirt and yoga pants. She was as beautiful as her photos. Two men in suits waited at the front door, one large and one small. Her bodyguards. The muscle and the shooter. Salome felt the need to say something as she walked by.

“I work for your husband.”

“Don’t we all.” Orli gave Salome the brilliant white smile that had sold a million Kias. Salome found herself unexpectedly charmed.

Duberman waited for her in his office. No hammerhead shark this time, no small talk. The international version of CNN played on a television behind her. He muted it but left it on. Letting her know that her visit was an interruption.

“We have a problem.” She told him about the National Intelligence Estimate. He listened with hands folded, eyes hooded. As if she were a casino manager explaining a $20 million loss.

“I’d say that’s more than a problem,” he said. “I’d say we’re done.”

“This makes it even more critical we don’t give up.”

“Then I hope you have a better idea.”

“I do.”

He reached for the remote control, turned the television off.

“The spies call this a false flag.” She explained her plan, that they needed to make America attack Iran.

“Impossible,” he said when she was finished. “Even if you could pull it off, which you can’t—you know what she tells me, the last few times we talked?”

“She?”

Duberman looked vaguely irritated that Salome couldn’t read his mind. “Donna.” Meaning Donna Green, the National Security Advisor, as close to the President as anyone. “I’ve pushed her. I mean, carefully, I don’t want to make her mad. But she knows where I stand, and she knows I’m connected over here, so she half expects it. I say, Donna, you can’t trust them, no matter how many cups of coffee you drink with them in Vienna. Even if they sign an agreement, it doesn’t matter. She tells me, we don’t want Iran to get a bomb either. And I say, tell me that they’re not getting close. She says, maybe. I say, I know that means they
are
getting close. I say, the Israelis want you to get out your pen, draw some red lines. She says, it’s great to hear from you. Next time you’re in Washington, come by, let’s meet in person. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

As if she hadn’t spoken, he repeated the question. “Do you understand? They are not going to war with Iran.”

“Unless we make them.”

He laughed. A dry, asthmatic sound, the sound of someone trying to reason with a crazy person. “
Make
the United States go to war?”

“The uranium. If we can get that.” What Mason had told her in Jakarta.
Get the HEU, they’ll have to listen.

“You have a source?”

“Not yet, but I will.” Though Mason had also said that finding weapons-grade uranium would be impossible. Nothing on earth was guarded more closely.

“And our current guys, none would wonder about this change in strategy?”

“These men, you give them a mission, that’s what they do. Long as they get paid. So—”

He reached into the desk, came out with a battered deck of cards. He shuffled them expertly, a perfect riff. Another new trick. Their backs were powder blue, with
H
s in white.

“These are almost forty years old, these cards. Hilton made new managers work the floor. To learn the business up close. There were no mechanical shufflers back then. So I learned.” He flipped through the cards. “My boss back then, he liked to say, ‘Your first loss is your best loss.’ You understand? If it’s not working, walk away.”

“That’s how you see this? A deal gone bad? A game? I guess I underestimated you.”

She pushed her chair back and stood. She was conscious of the theatricality of the gesture, conscious, too, that her anger was real. The man across the desk from her had put up the cash, but she had done everything else.

“Sit down.”

She didn’t.

“Understand what you’re proposing here. I’m an American citizen. This is treason. Punishable by death. And I’m not in the same place I was when we started.”

Yeah, you married the best Barbie money could buy.
I married Glenn Mason.
Salome didn’t say a word.

“Orli’s pregnant.”

Her stomach twisted. More proof that the life she’d imagined with Duberman had never existed anywhere but her mind. Strange to know his greatest secret and so little else about him.

“Congratulations.” She choked out the word.

“Thank you. I’m trying not to think about the fact that I’ll be in my seventies when they’re teenagers. So this thing you’re proposing—”

“It’s a long shot. And if we get caught, yes. I understand. There’s only one reason to do it, Aaron.” She rarely permitted herself to use his name. “If we don’t, Iran’s going to get the bomb. And not just one. Sooner or later, they’ll turn that city behind you into a pile of smoke. Maybe your kids will be there when it happens. You don’t care about that, then there’s nothing else I can say.”

He shuffled once more and then shoved the cards away.

“You know how leverage works, right?”

“No more business jargon. Please.”

“Put up a dollar of your own, borrow nine, now you have ten dollars. Then you do something with it. Buy a stock, whatever. If what you buy goes up ten percent, to eleven dollars, you pay back the bank the nine dollars, keep two dollars. That’s leverage. The investment only went up ten percent, but you doubled your money. But if what you buy goes down ten percent, you’re wiped out. You multiply your gains and your losses. You get it?”

“You’re saying this is leverage. The bank being the U.S. military.” She wasn’t sure, but she thought he was convincing himself, the way he had years before, putting the scheme in business terms, his native language.

He grinned. An odd expression. His face wasn’t built for big smiles. “But that’s it. The Pentagon
isn’t
a bank. If they catch us, they won’t sue us. They’ll string us up.”

She didn’t know where he was going. Silence seemed to be her best choice.

“Do you believe?”

“Excuse me?”

He pointed at the ceiling in all apparent sincerity. “In God.”

In truth, she didn’t. Her depression had wiped out any belief she had in a universal power, much less an afterlife. Any God who allowed the mind to inflict such pain on itself was either nonexistent or impossibly cruel. She preferred the former. But she didn’t think that answer would satisfy Duberman. “God? I guess so. I mean, maybe.”

“That’s no. If you have to think about it, it’s no.”

“No—”

“You don’t have to spare my feelings. Me, I believe. Everything I’ve been given, how could I not? Funny, isn’t it, we’ve never really talked religion before.”

“There’s a lot we don’t know about each other.”

“I guess.” He turned away from her, to the window. “Out there, Tel Aviv, the gays, fine. They haven’t been to temple in their whole lives. Then in Bnei Brak, these ultra-Orthodox with ten children, spending their day mumbling over the Torah.” Duberman folded his hands together, rocked back and forth in his chair, imitating a Hasidic man praying. “Can’t stand each other. Can’t even talk to each other. But they’re all Jews. The Nazis, they were right about that. We’re a race. Not a religion. Not a culture. A race. Brothers in blood.”

Salome thought of Orli, her long blond hair. Of Ethiopians and Chinese converts. But now was not the moment to argue.

“Germans, Iranians, Russians, two thousand years ago Romans, Egyptians then and now—all of them, they all want to stamp us out.
Crush us. Nothing else in common, but they all hate Jews. The pogroms and the camps and the wars. All the way back to the Babylonians. We’ve always survived.”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure this is the only way? Treason.”

“I don’t know any other.”

“Then all right. If you can find that highly enriched uranium, we’ll do it.”

She felt as though she were watching them both from fifty thousand feet up. All of Tel Aviv below her, the sea to the west, the skyscrapers along the beach, and she and Duberman floating above, protecting them all without their knowing.

“What are you thinking?”

“That I wish we had a film crew here. Or at least a hidden camera. This moment ought to be recorded for posterity.”

“Not sure that would be a great idea.” He looked down at his desk in a way that let her know they were done, she was dismissed. Amazing that he could make a decision so momentous and then push her aside.

“You have an incredible ability to compartmentalize.”

His nostrils flared in a silent laugh. “You want to stay for lunch, talk about your feelings? Go find the stuff.”

She turned, walked to the door. She knew she shouldn’t say anything to jeopardize her triumph, but she couldn’t help herself.

“Whatever happened to, your first loss is your best loss?”

“Corporate crap. Never believed it. If I had, I would have walked away from The Sizzling Saloon. Don’t you know anything about me? I like to gamble.”

—

In the next months, she put the pieces together. She found an Iranian exile who could pass as a Revolutionary Guard colonel. And the only man in the world who had a private stash of weapons-grade uranium.
She met Duberman in Hong Kong to tell him, get his final go-ahead. She saw that he was thrilled, and half terrified, too. She understood.

Her luck, or Duberman’s God, or both, were on their side. Their new plan
worked
. Reza played his part as colonel perfectly. They gave the CIA enough evidence to make his story plausible. Only a few months after agreeing to discuss the end of sanctions, the United States and Iran were at the brink of war.

There was only one problem.

John Wells.

Wells tracked Mason to Istanbul. Mason and Salome played back, caught him there. Then Salome messed up. She let Mason convince her to hold Wells prisoner instead of killing him. Wells escaped, killed Mason and four of his men along the way. Salome had barely contained the aftermath. She knew Wells would keep coming. But did he know who she was? That Duberman was behind her?

She’d spoken to Duberman a few days before, to let him know that they had captured Wells and cleared the way for their final move—leading the CIA to the highly enriched uranium. She didn’t want to discuss the new situation over the phone or email, even in code, even through anonymizing software. She flew to Hong Kong for a face-to-face chat.

—

Now, at last, she heard his confident steps coming toward the living room. Then the man himself. He wore a black turtleneck, dark gray pants, sleek black shoes. He looked like a cool college professor, one who was a little too old but could still fill an auditorium. In fact, the clothes were hand-tailored and cost as much as a car. He looked as he had when they’d met almost a decade ago. She figured he had a high-end anti-aging regimen going, testosterone and human growth hormone and whatever other potions doctors used to stop time. But even guessing at his tricks, knowing his vanity, she felt herself loosen in the usual places. He might be married to another woman, but he would never lose his hold on her.

The realization annoyed her.

“Aaron. Nice of you to make it.”

“Congratulations.” He came to her, wrapped his arms around her, and squeezed. He had never hugged her before. He smelled faintly of an aftershave almost medicinal in its harshness, simple and expensive. She wanted to cradle her head against his shoulder. Instead, she detached herself, stepped back.

“See if you still want to hug me after I give you the news.”