“So may I speak to your grandfather?”
“Actually, I’m afraid that’s not possible right now.”
“I don’t understand,” said Bennett. “I was under the impression that—”
“I realize the urgency, as does my grandfather. But he wanted to arrange some things before meeting with you. I explained all this to the prime minister. He understands. My grandfather and I can meet you and your wife tomorrow morning at ten o’clock. I hope that is acceptable, under the circumstances.”
Bennett wasn’t sure what was going on but he didn’t have the emotional energy to argue. He and Erin both needed rest and some time alone anyway.
“Very well,” he said. “Ten o’clock tomorrow it is. Should we come to campus?”
“No,” said Natasha. “My grandfather would like to meet you in his private office at the Israel Museum. I understand you’ll have a car and driver.”
“Yes,” said Bennett. “The prime minister was very generous.”
“Have the driver bring you to the entrance of the Shrine of the Book. I’ll meet you there and guide you through security.”
The phone startled Bennett awake.
Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he checked his watch as the phone kept ringing. It was barely four-thirty in the morning. He grabbed the receiver and found Ken Costello on the other end.
“Sorry to wake you, Jon.”
“Who died?” Jon said, without a trace of humor in his voice.
“No one — not today,” Costello replied.
“Then why are you calling me so early?”
“It’s Lucente.”
Bennett’s brain scrambled to catch up. E.U. foreign minister Salvador Lucente was set to arrive in Israel later this morning to tour the region with Costello and Prime Minister Doron. An exclusive in Yediot Aharonot, the leading Israeli daily, had reported the day before that Lucente was set to offer the Jewish state billions of euros in aid for continuing disaster-relief efforts. It was the first such offer of its kind in the rocky history between the E.U. and Israel, and the country was buzzing. But so what? thought Jon. What did that have to do with him?
“What about him?” he asked, trying hard not to sound as upset as he felt for a wake-up call at such an hour.
“He’s cutting his trip to Israel short to go to Babylon.”
“What for?” Bennett whispered, trying not to wake Erin.
“I have no idea,” said Costello. “I was hoping you’d know.”
“I don’t, Ken. And don’t take this the wrong way, but what exactly does this have to do with me? I don’t work for you guys anymore, remember?”
“I know. I’m sorry. But Lucente’s chief of staff just called me from the plane. Lucente wants to meet with you and Erin tonight, before he leaves for Babylon.”
“What are you talking about? Why?”
“He didn’t say.”
“But you just said he’s only here for the day.”
“That’s right. He flies out around nine. But he’d like to meet for dinner.”
“Would you be there?”
“No, just you and Erin.”
“Where?”
“Right there at the King David. His advance team is already there, doing a security sweep.”
“And you don’t have any idea what this is about?” Bennett asked.
“No.”
“Even off the record?”
“Sorry, my friend. But I need to get back to them with an answer right away. Apparently he’d rather have dinner with you than with Prime Minister Doron and his wife. That’s who’s on the schedule right now.”
“I’m out of the game, Ken. Do they know that?”
“Of course, but his people say it’s urgent. He’s up to something, Jon. He’s angling for something, and I’m not sure what. But the president would like you to say yes and report back to him.”
“President MacPherson knows about this?”
“Of course,” said Costello. “I called him before I called you.”
Bennett sighed. “What time does Lucente want to meet?”
“At 6 p.m., downstairs at La Regence. You’ll have the whole place to yourselves.”
Bennett laid his head back on the pillow and closed his eyes. This was a mistake. He was getting sucked back into a job he’d just quit. But he told Costello yes, hung up the phone, and immediately hoped he wouldn’t regret it.
Mordechai’s death was big news in Israel.
Over breakfast, Erin called Indira Rajiv back at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, to check in while Jon scanned the morning papers. Rajiv offered her condolences.
Erin thanked her but quickly moved on to the business at hand. “You guys hearing anything on Dr. Mordechai’s murder?” she asked Rajiv.
“Too much, actually,” said Rajiv, to Erin’s surprise. “We’re picking up chatter about Mordechai all over the world. It’s going to take a while to sort through. He certainly engendered strong feelings on both sides.”
“I guess so,” Erin said, stirring cream into her coffee. “What are you thinking?”
“It’s too early to say anything conclusive,” Rajiv replied. “But speaking purely on instinct, I’d say it was a team of Israelis — former special forces, probably religious, almost certainly with inside access to Israeli police and intel files.”
“Why do you say that?” asked Erin.
“Because the hit team clearly knew what flight Mordechai was on. They knew when he’d land, how he was getting home, and what route he’d be on, and they were waiting for him. That’s not easy to do — not without help or access. I checked the El Al flight manifest myself. Mordechai wasn’t even listed as a passenger.”
“He goes by an alias,” said Erin.
“A man of his position would,” said Rajiv. “But somebody knew. They were watching him. What’s more, they knew that he’d dropped his security detail.”
A chill ran down Erin’s spine.
So there was a mole inside Doron’s team and a team of assassins inside Israel’s borders, and God only knew whom they might go after next.
20
The blue-and-gold Airbus A320 landed just after breakfast.
With almost a hundred members of the international press corps watching, the E.U. foreign minister’s jumbo jet taxied across the runway at Ben Gurion International to its designated tarmac, where Prime Minister David Doron and Special White House Envoy Ken Costello waited to greet Mr. Lucente as he came down the ramp. The three shook hands and smiled for the cameras. Then aides guided them to an Israeli military helicopter, and soon they were airborne and headed north toward the Lebanon border.
Fifteen minutes later, they crossed a mountain ridge and began descending into a valley where some of the worst of the devastation from the firestorm had occurred.
The scene so revolted Costello that he had to grab two airsickness bags, both of which were quickly filled. It was the first time he had seen any of the carnage in person. In an unprecedented show of tact, television networks back home had refused to show such gruesome images to Americans in their homes during the dinner hour, and though Costello had read all the intelligence reports and press accounts emanating from the region, neither the printed word nor dozens of still photos began to capture the magnitude of the disaster he now saw firsthand.
Even all these weeks after the fact, tens of thousands of putrefying, nearly completely decomposed corpses lay strewn throughout the hills, alongside piles of bones scattered as far as the eye could see. Yet even if one had wanted an unobstructed view of the carnage, it wasn’t easy to get given the swarms of vultures and rodents and dogs and animals of all kinds that had gathered to feast upon the bodies.