This was not a Pentagon photo op. There were no reporters, American or otherwise, embedded into the operation. This was an unprecedented opportunity to smash the Palestinian terror network once and for all, and to see if peace had any chance whatsoever of taking root in the rocky, barren soil of the territories, long poisoned by bitterness and blood. Thus, within forty-eight hours of the first American boots on the ground, a total of two thousand U.S. troops and Special Forces were airlifted into the theater. Dozens of U.S.-owned and — operated M-l Abrams tanks, Humvees, and Bradley fighting vehicles were moved in as well, and were now choking off every major artery into the West Bank and Gaza.
Ostensibly, the heavy mechanized forces were there to keep the Israelis out. At least, that's what the press and public were told. More to the point, such hardware and the troops that operated them were tasked with keeping suicide bombers from infiltrating Israel. Any new Israeli deaths by Muslim extremists could force Doron's hand, making it politically impossible for him not to order punitive strikes into Palestinian nerve centers.
MacPherson was taking a huge risk, and he knew it. But once committed, he pulled out all the stops. If the United States was going to "own" Palestine for the next few weeks, it was going to stop at nothing to make sure every known and suspected terrorist was taken off the streets.
"I want Israel blocked from any possible incursion into Palestinian areas, and I want Palestinian terrorists hunted down and rounded up until they're gone, all of them — no exceptions, no regrets."
That was the blunt message he'd delivered to the troops through armed forces radio, and that was the sound bite that led the evening news Wednesday night in the United States and throughout the world. According to the White House, it was a MacPherson original — unscripted and unrehearsed. Or so went the spin from the press office and their surrogates. Either way, it was having its intended effect. International and congressional support was holding, for the moment at least.
Also as much under the heading of international public relations as operational necessity, U.S. forces were taking special care to secure Christian, Jewish, and Muslim holy sites, and had done so from the opening hours of Operation Palestinian Freedom. Just three hours after Bennett and his team were extracted from Gaza, U.S. Ranger teams fast roped into Bethlehem to surround the Church of the Nativity, the traditional memorial site of Jesus' birth.
Israeli intelligence had started picking up reports that suicide bombers were planning to attack the church and destroy it in a lightning-quick raid. Doron ordered those reports sent immediately to the Pentagon and CIA, where officials — to their credit — moved quickly and decisively to avoid a religious and archaeological catastrophe of the first order.
The president ordered in the Rangers. Within hours, sites like Rachel's Tomb and Abraham's Tomb were being secured by U.S. forces, as were two dozen other sites on a list personally drawn up by Prime Minister Doron and faxed to the president. Every few hours, Press Secretary Chuck Murray stepped back to the podium to announce an updated list of holy sites that were now secure in American hands. At Marsha Kirkpatrick's suggestion— and the president's approval — Murray also did his first live broadcast interviews with Al Jazeera and Abu Dhabi Television, as well as an informal press "gaggle" with reporters from Arab and other Muslim countries.
It was a full court press, and this White House was working all the angles.
Nadir Hashemi was glued to CNN.
Holed up in a $49-a-night motel room by a truck stop in rural Arkansas, just outside of Little Rock, he was taking no chances. Not anymore, at least.
Less than an hour after he'd crossed the border, the United States went to Threat Level Red, triggering an immediate closure of all borders and the most sweeping security lockdown in U.S. history. But for nearly twenty-four hours, the Viper had been oblivious to any of it.
He hadn't been listening to the radio. He'd pulled into rest stops only long enough to fill his tank and empty his bladder, never long enough to watch television or listen to the frantic talk of fellow diners, worrying about what this new war in and for the Holy Land might mean to them. It might have been a fatal mistake. What he didn't know could kill him, Nadir told himself. He had to be more careful, and that meant tracking the news on the hour.
The FBI, he quickly learned, was conducting a massive manhunt in the United States, Canada, and Mexico for a Mrs. Ruth Bennett, the sixty-nine-year-old mother of Jonathan Meyers Bennett, the senior White House advisor and chief architect of the administration's Arab-Israeli peace plan apparently now scuttled by the violence spreading throughout the territories and the introduction of U.S. peacemaking and peacekeeping forces. In light of the nation's threat level, officials were listing the woman as missing and presumed kidnapped, and the FBI and DHS — Department of Homeland Security— were offering a reward of $5 million for any information leading to the safe retrieval of Mrs. Bennett, and the indictment and conviction of the perpetrators.
At the same time, a massive federal and international manhunt was under way in search of anyone who could even remotely be a possible suicide bomber, inside or headed for the United States. Palestinians and those of Arab origin were prime suspects, of course, and all sorts of organizations in Washington and Detroit were crying foul and raising red flags about the prospect of mass numbers of civil liberties violations.
But a report a few hours ago on MSNBC quoted an unnamed senior Homeland Security Department source saying officials had reason to believe a small handful of non-Arabs might also have been recruited to carry out the attacks. Speculation seemed to be centering on young to middle-aged American and European women who were currently dating or were married to men of Middle East descent, or had done so within the last three to five years.
Meanwhile, the airtight security federal officials initially imposed only on Washington for the president's return from the NATO summit in Madrid was now being replicated in major cities throughout the country, particularly those up and down the eastern seaboard. This posed a serious problem.
Nadir was hoping to pick up his supply of plastic explosives from a sleeper agent in Atlanta, and several firearms from another contact in Savannah. From there, the plan was to try to slip into Washington or New York for New Year's Eve. But he was still at least a good ten to twelve hours away from Atlanta, and it was almost midnight Thursday, the thirtieth of December. At this point, there was almost no way he could reach his intended target on schedule. With all the roadblocks, checkpoints, and other security measures up across the country, it would be hard enough to connect with his suppliers on time.
Nadir let out a string of curses in Arabic. The world had gone mad. Palestine was burning. Gaza was on fire. And American infidels were desecrating the land of his mother and her family. He seethed with a rage he'd for so long controlled. He wanted to bolt. He wanted to jump back in the car, pop down more amphetamines and tromp on the accelerator. He could make it to Atlanta in less than a day. He had to. But how?
It wasn't a matter of mileage and ground speed. He had to be careful. He had to watch his back and his steps. He couldn't afford to be caught speeding, or under the influence of narcotics. He couldn't afford to be caught at all. His father and brothers were counting on him. So was his mother, wherever she was in a Paradise that awaited them all. His rage would find its outlet. The Great Satan would feel his fury.