Gideon reached over and touched Ruth's shoulder. He could feel her shaking under his hand.
"I cut her off. We talked maybe a half-dozen times since she left. Never once did I call her—" Ruth leaned against him and whispered. "Could this be my fault? Would she have done this if I hadn't abandoned her? If she wasn't alone?"
"No," Gideon whispered. "It isn't your fault."
We ’re all alone.
3.04 Fri. Mar. 26
B Y the time Fitzsimmons had fully digested the contents of Tischler's little gift, and had reviewed the records on Agent Christoffel, it was time for his daily briefing with President Rayburn. It was scheduled in the morning, right after a Rose Garden speech about U.S.-Indonesian relations. Fitzsimmons came early and spent his time waiting in the Oval Office, sitting and looking over the files he had printed for Rayburn over the past two hours.
His hands were shaking.
Rayburn's booming voice interrupted his train of thought, almost making him drop the files he carried. "Larry, you look like shit."
Fitzsimmons stood and nodded, "Mr. President."
Rayburn stood in front of the door, closing it. He seemed to tower over Fitzsimmons. "Okay, what is
it?"
Fitzsimmons took in a breath and said, "I think you'd better take a seat."
Rayburn scanned the room and realized that they were alone. A look of concern crossed his face as he took a seat across from Fitzsimmons. "No expert witnesses?"
"No, I need to bring this to your attention before anyone else hears it." Fitzsimmons handed the files to Rayburn.
Rayburn took the files and said, "This is about Zimmerman, isn't it?"
"Not just Zimmerman, though."
"All right, let's hear it."
Fitzsimmons gave an abbreviated account of Tischler's meeting with him this morning. Rayburn frowned as he listened. "Christ, they have us monitored that well?"
"The fact that the Israelis were willing to let us know that marks the gravity of what they gave us. They sacrificed a lot of U.S.-Israeli goodwill, as well as their assets in this country, to hand this over to us."
Rayburn nodded. "What is it, and how do we know that it isn't some piece of disinformation?"
Fitzsimmons stood and walked over to a table that held a pitcher of ice water. He poured himself a glass and drank, wishing it was scotch. "It isn't, Mr. President. I've confirmed a number of isolated facts from our own records."
"What is this they gave us? What does it have to do with Zimmerman?"
"Zimmerman is most likely in the hands of the International Unification Front, a State-sponsored independent umbrella organization that is interested—allegedly—in a pan-Arab, pan-Islamic union in the Mid-East. They organize terrorism, intelligence, espionage, and paramilitary training for dozens of smaller groups. Needless to say, the Israelis have the most complete records on them outside the IUF itself—" Fitzsimmons sucked, in a deep breath.
"What the Israelis just handed us, is those records. All of them."
"What?" The note of disbelief in Rayburn's voice hung in the air, an almost physical thickening of the atmosphere.
Fitzsimmons drank his water, trying to keep his throat from drying out completely. "Tischler handed over a copy of the Israelis' complete file on the IUF. Uncensored, unedited, straight from the Mossad computers."
"Holy shit." Rayburn flipped through the top file, which was a pre-made abstract of the information on Tischler's CD. Fitzsimmons had printed it raw from the disk. "Why would they just hand us this? We've cooperated with them before, but they don't let go of any information without a reason."
"Zimmerman, in the hands of the IUF, is much more a threat to them than it is to us. And they know that, once we have this file, the IUF will cease to exist."
The President of the United States looked up from the abstract as if he could hear the nerves behind Fitzsimmons' words. "You better explain that, Larry."
"It's in the abstract."
"I want to hear it in your words."
"We've been wrong about what State actually sponsors the IUF."
Rayburn just stared at him.
"The IUF—we've traced Syrian backing, Libyan involvement, ties to several Islamic republics from the Soviet break up. All of it is camouflage. The IUF is, whole cloth, the result of a runaway covert operation managed by the CIA, an operation that began in the mid-eighties."
"You've got to be fucking kidding me."
Fitzsimmons shook his head. "Remember William Casey and his dream of an 'off-the-shelf CIA?
Remember all the hostage negotiations? There were a hell of a lot of Mid-East contacts made back then. A hell of a lot more assets developed than the Senate Intelligence Oversight Committee ever discovered."
"Are you saying that we created the IUF?"
Fitzsimmons nodded. "I've backtracked a lot. The quality of our Middle-East intelligence started gaining a lot of credibility right after the IUF formed. Even when the IUF was still a secret society, not publicly known. We knew more about the World Trade Center bombing than we should've. There's even a chance that the site to park the truck was a piece of misinformation that we fed the terrorists—I mean their goal was to bring the building down. If the truck was in a better spot they might've. Oklahoma City, we seem to have known it was a domestic bombing within twelve hours— Days before anyone else. Ever since the overt formation of the IUF, there's been Arab terrorism, but their efficacy against U.S. targets has been remarkably reduced."
"My God . . ."
"It gets worse." .
Rayburn looked up at Fitzsimmons.
"Emmit D'Arcy was in the CIA then, a Mid-East analyst. He was one of William Casey's protégés."
Rayburn was shaking his head.
"D'Arcy's been in a prime position to develop the IUF, and deflect any inquiry. Look at the damn Daedalus theft. Look who was in on the theft, two live CIA agents and a handful of freelancers from the Iran-Contra days. Even though their capture was securely under wraps, someone tipped Zimmerman, the IUF, or both, that we were running a trap for them. D'Arcy's been playing the angle that Zimmerman has compromised everything, casting her as pretty much omniscient— How better to cover up a mole in our own ranks?"
"What are you saying? That D'Arcy engineered that whole warehouse fiasco on purpose?"
"No," Fitzsimmons said. "I'm saying that those computer thieves were never meant to be caught. D'Arcy's a genius at improvisation. Within an hour of the capture he had his people there claiming National Security, and was setting up shipment of the Daedalus to DC, and drafting press releases on how the computer was yet to be recovered. He had us believing that it was a carefully calculated plan to capture Zimmerman—so much so that I provided the manpower to take Zimmerman in—and it was all a charade."
Rayburn shook his head. "But that means that D'Arcy planned Zimmerman's disappearance. Why?"
"I don't know." Fitzsimmons could hear the nerves in his own voice. "But I don't think we have much time to find out. I can't find the Daedalus."
"What?"
"The computer, D'Arey, and one of my agents, Christoffel, all seem to be missing."
"Christoffel?"
Fitzsimmons nodded. "He worked the same Mid-East desk that D'Arcy used to. He was also in charge of Morris Kendal. I've looked at his debriefing of Kendal, again. It now strikes me as much too brief."
"What a fucking mess." Rayburn shook his head and put a hand to his forehead, "D'Arcy?"
"D'Arcy."
Rayburn's voice became a shallow monotone, drained of most of its regional character. "You know he was on the short list of people to replace you, once you retired." He looked over at Fitzsimmons and said, "Now I have to have the fucker's head on a plate."