Page 12 of The Last Days

  A few moments later, McCoy entered Gaza Station’s main control room. Bennett saw her through the doorway and did a double-take. She hadn’t had a chance to take a shower yet, but she was drying her hair with a towel, and even in borrowed navy blue sweatpants and a white cotton T-shirt, she looked incredible. Fortunately, she didn’t catch Bennett’s startled reaction, and for that he couldn’t have been more thankful.

  “Can I borrow that?” McCoy asked Ziegler.

  “Be my guest.”

  She grabbed a rubber band off his desk and put her hair up in a ponytail. Then she spotted a Yankees baseball cap sitting on a file cabinet. She snagged that, too, adjusted the plastic straps to make it smaller, put it on and thanked Ziegler and Tariq for their hospitality. Then she came into the conference room and sat down next to Bennett.

  “Ready when you are, Point Man.”

  Ziegler had sensed something was in the air between these two the mo ment they’d arrived. He’d seen how McCoy looked at Bennett. He’d just caught Bennett’s reaction when McCoy came into the room. It didn’t take Dr. Phil to know something was going on here. They didn’t get many visitors at Gaza Station. Certainly not White House VIPs like Jon Bennett. And certainly not Uzi-toting, Arabic-speaking CIA supermodels like Erin McCoy. Ziegler couldn’t help but find himself curious, or wonder if Bennett was really McCoy’s type.

  Like everyone on his team—like everyone else in Washington and gov ernments in two or three dozen other capitals around this region and the world—he’d read the New York Times profile on Bennett. He’d read the quotes by Bennett’s colleagues and former college roommates. He knew Bennett’s MO—big money, big temper, and absolutely no experience in the

  Byzantine political world of the Middle East. Was McCoy really drawn to this guy? Was she really interested in someone almost ten years older than her? Maybe. But maybe not. Ziegler knew better than to assume anything. Who knew? Maybe he had a shot.

  Suddenly, Ziegler’s face turned ashen. The man seemed transfixed on the bank of video monitors in front of him, but Bennett couldn’t see a thing. His view was obstructed, and he was about to be patched through to Wash ington.

  “What’s going on?” Bennett yelled.

  “Oh my God,” Ziegler said, his eyes darting from one screen to the next.

  “What is it?” Bennett pressed.

  But for a moment, Ziegler just stood there, shaking his head, unable to speak. He punched a few buttons. The TV monitors in the conference room where Bennett and McCoy were flickered to life. The images were unbeliev able. A bloodbath was under way, but neither Bennett nor McCoy under stood exactly what they were seeing. Phones started ringing. Ziegler’s team was moving quickly now, scrambling to get on top of the situation. E-mails started coming in from field operatives scattered throughout the West Bank and Gaza. Adrenaline was flowing and the tension in the room was palpable.

  “JZ, what the hell is going on?” Bennett demanded. “I’m on with the president in less than three minutes. I’ve got to—”

  “We’ve got a little situation here. We’ve got a huge gun battle erupting in Khan Yunis. But it’s not just Khan Yunis. It’s Gaza City. Hebron. Jericho. Nablus. We’ve got huge battles starting in most of the major Palestinian population centers.”

  “With who, Israelis?”

  “No, that’s just it—it looks like the top Palestinian security chiefs are mobilizing their forces and squaring off against each other.”

  “What are you talking about?” Bennett asked, trying to process what Zie gler was saying.

  “I’m talking about the worst-case scenario, Jon. I’m talking about a full-blown Palestinian civil war.”

  Something evil was moving through the streets of Gaza.

  Bennett stared at the monitors in front of him. Through pouring rain and thick clouds of smoke, he could see a raging firefight under way. He could see cars overturned and consumed by flames.

  Tracer bullets crisscrossed through dark alleyways, and though it was only approaching noon, it was as though an oppressive darkness had fallen over the rain-soaked city. It was impossible to assess accurately the extent of the carnage, at least by watching it from the vantage point of a Predator drone. But men, women, and children were dying. Their blood was running through the gutters.

  All hell was breaking loose. That much was clear. Bennett felt severe pains shoot through his stomach and abdomen. McCoy saw him wince and hold his side.

  “Gaza Station, this is Prairie Ranch. “

  It was Marsha Kirkpatrick in the Situation Room. The videoconference was live.

  “You are now connected to a National Security Council meeting already in progress. Please authenticate.”

  Ziegler and Tariq scrambled to secure the connection and patch Bennett through.

  “Jon, it’s the president, can you hear me?”

  Bennett straightened up and tried to ignore the intense pain he was now in. He fumbled with his IFB earpiece, but after a moment or two—with McCoy’s help—he was finally connected.

  “Yes, Mr. President, I can—finally—and I can see you guys as well on the monitors here. Sorry for the delay.”

  “Are you and Erin OK?”

  “We’re good, sir—lucky, I guess.”

  “Luck had nothing to do with it, Jon. Someone’s looking out for you, and it’s not just our friends at Langley. What about Dmitri and Ibrahim?”

  “They’re OK, sir—shook up, like all of us. But physically, yes, they’ll be fine.”

  “/ understand there’s been some confusion over how much access they can have?”

  “Well, yes, that’s true, sir.”

  “Let me spell it out for you, Jon, so there’s no confusion. I know you’ve got the best of intentions. Dmitri and Ibrahim are good men—-friends of peace, and of this administration. But they’re not American citizens. They’re not cleared. And we can’t just let them go roaming around in there You and Erin are sitting in a twenty-five-million-dollar foxhole and we can’t afford to let anybody know what it is or where. You got that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Now make sure those boys are well taken care of, and put them to work. Get Dmitri on the phone with Dr. Mordechai and all his pals at the Mossad. Get Ibrahim on the horn with his buddies inside the Palestinian Au thority. Tell them to press their sources. Find out what they know. Find out who’s behind all of this. Anything they can find out, the better. Tell them it’s a personal request from me, and I won’t forget their help. “

  “I’ll do that, sir.”

  “Good. And how’s your mom holding up? She knows you’re OK?”

  “No, I haven’t called her yet, sir. It seemed too early, but—”

  “No, no, no. As soon as we finish up here, you give her a call. You’re all she’s got now. You hear me?” Yes, sir.

  MacPherson never ceased to be his surrogate father, Bennett realized, nor would he, especially now. He’d taken the young “whippersnapper” under his wing when he was only twenty-two. He’d taught him how to become a world-class strategist. He’d praised his successes, gently warned him about his weaknesses, and was always offering Bennett friendly advice on everything from finding good restaurants in New York to finding good ski slopes in the Rockies. And given that MacPherson had achieved every goal he’d ever set for himself—and then some—his advice was something Bennett took seri ously.

  “Now look, I just got off the phone with Prime Minister Down, “the president continued. “Here’s the situation. State says all their DSS agents are dead. With this storm, we have no way to get you out of there right now. Down’s offering to send in ground forces to extract you. We’d have to get you all out of Gaza Station, of course. We can’t let the IDF know where you are right now. But if all things go well, you could be home by tomorrow. We’ve all been talking about it, and most of the NSC thinks we should accept Down’s offer. “

  Bennett sensed MacPherson wasn’t quite finished with his thought, but perhaps it was just a second or two de
lay in the satellite transmission.

  “What do you think, Jon?” the president asked.

  Bennett hesitated. He knew how much the president was investing in this Medexco deal, and it was hard for Bennett to imagine he didn’t see or understand the implications of what he was asking. The last thing Bennett wanted was to be voted down by the NSC on the first question put to him. There were a lot of other issues ahead for them to deal with. But his heart was racing. It felt like every molecule in his body was shaking. His gut told him not to get the IDF involved. But was he really about to tell the president to turn down Doron’s offer?

  Merkava, in Hebrew, meant “chariot.”

  But the sixty-five-ton Merkava Mark 4 was more than a chariot. It was the IDF’s premier battle tank. With a 120-mm smooth-bore cannon, three 7.62-mm machine guns, an internal 60-mm mortar, and dual smoke-grenade launchers, it turned a four-man crew into a death machine. Add night vision and thermal imaging capability, a twelve-hundred-horsepower air-cooled die sel engine, automatic fire-suppression equipment, and the most advanced nuclear, biological, and chemical protection on the face of the planet, and the Merkava was the most sophisticated weapon in the Israeli ground game. It owned the night and could smash through enemy lines at sixty kilometers an hour.

  And now, while MacPherson and his National Security Council debated the merits of an Israeli ground operation, a hundred and fifty Merkavas were taking up positions on the Green Line. They were preparing to sweep into the West Bank—into Nablus, Hebron, Ramallah, and Jenin, backed up with fifty more armored personnel carriers and an array of bulldozers and close air support from Apache attack helicopters, each with rapid-fire front-mounted cannons and sixteen Hellfire missiles.

  At the same time, forty-five more Merkava and American-made Abrams M1 battle tanks and armored personnel carriers were also moving into po-

  sition. They were preparing to blast their way into northern Gaza through the border town of Beit Lahiya, supported by two squadrons of attack helicopters and six F-18s carrying laser-guided missiles. At the southern point of the Gaza Strip, twenty more Israeli battle tanks and troop carriers were poised to cut off the main road to the dusty little Palestinian refugee town of Rafah, the last checkpoint before the Egyptian border and the vast Sinai Peninsula. A decision needed to be made. Prime Minister Doron wasn’t at all convinced he should send forces into the territories, or that it would serve Israel’s national interests. His Security Cabinet was actually sharply divided. But all of Doron’s senior advisors agreed that Washington was about to ask them to move, and they needed to look cooperative. They needed to give the American president cover by offering to go in before they were officially asked. So that’s what they were doing. By sundown, everything would be set.

  Bennett took the plunge.

  “Mr. President, with all due respect to my colleagues, it would be my strongest possible recommendation that the IDF stay the hell out of Gaza and the West Bank.”

  Everyone was stunned by Bennett’s intensity, including McCoy.

  Was this one of the fringe benefits of having $9.6 million socked away in the bank after years of high-stakes poker on Wall Street? she wondered. He could certainly speak his mind. He trusted his instincts, his experience. It wasn’t arrogance. It was clarity and conviction, though to a competitor it might be hard to make that distinction.

  “Go on,” the president said, also taken aback.

  “Erin and I will be fine. Sa’id and Galishnikov will be fine. We’re all safe. We don’t need to be taken out of here right now. What we need to do is think strategically, not tactically. Let’s keep our eye on the ball. What do we know? Arafat, Mazen, and the secretary are dead. But the peace process isn’t. What’s just happened is horrible, but it’s not fatal to the process. Just the opposite. This could be an opportunity—not one we’d want, or plan for— but let’s not kid ourselves, this changes everything.”

  “How so?” asked the president.

  Bennett’s voice was gaining strength.

  “Sir, a week ago, we were gathered in the Oval Office arguing over whether we should be dealing with Arafat at all. Jack, you and your guys at the CIA argued Arafat was a terrorist who’d never change his ways, didn’t deserve his Nobel Peace Prize, and shouldn’t be elevated by a meeting with a senior U.S.

  official. Marsha, you made a rather eloquent case that Abu Mazen—if he were really a potential partner for peace—could never amass enough author ity to lead unless we dealt only with him, and sidelined Arafat. Secretary Paine, of course, argued that sending a delegation to Gaza and not meeting with the father of the Palestinian revolution would be so insulting that Arafat would work against us to undermine the entire peace process. He insisted that we had to work with Arafat, or risk shaming him in front of his people and the world.”

  “And?” the president pressed.

  “And now they’re gone. A Palestinian extremist has just assassinated the leaders of the Palestinian revolution. This is no longer about whether the U.S. refuses to deal with one or the other. It’s no longer about whether the Israelis want to deport Arafat and try to prop up Mazen. They’re gone. And every Pal estinian—every Arab, everyone—knows it wasn’t us, or the Israelis. And now they’re watching this nightmare on TV, Palestinians attacking each other.”

  McCoy wasn’t entirely sure where Bennett was headed. But her initial fears were quickly dissipating. She was fascinated to watch his mind work and wondered where all this was coming from.

  “Mr. President, as you know, the confidential polls we’ve taken over the last few weeks show the vast majority of Palestinians are already tired of all the fighting,” Bennett continued, his sentences coming quickly and with passion. “A strong majority thinks Palestinian violence has become counterproductive. They want the intifada to end, and they like what they’ve started to hear about our oil-for-peace deal. They’re tired of the killing, the poverty, and deprivations. Sure, when we asked if they’d love to wipe out Israel and control all the land if they could, of course they said yes. But when we asked if they think that’s ever really going to happen, most Palestinians said no. When we asked if they were ready to settle for a little less land in return for a share of huge oil and gas revenues, a significant majority said yes.”

  “So long as they still get part of Jerusalem,” Mitchell added.

  “That’s right,” Bennett agreed. “They still want part, if not all, of Jerusalem.”

  “So what’s your point, Jon?” Kirkpatrick asked.

  “My point is that all of our polling was done before all this violence today. I guarantee you if it were possible to poll again tomorrow, we’d find the majority of Palestinians horrified by what’s just happened and sick of what they’re doing to themselves and the way they look to the rest of the world. I think we’d find the vast majority finally, firmly resolved to end this gen eration of violence once and for all.”

  “And …” Kirkpatrick pressed.

  “And we need to seize on that sentiment before it fades or changes. Mr. President, when you address the nation later this morning to mourn our losses, speak directly to the Palestinian people—offer condolences for the loss if their leadership and then ask them if this is what they want for their children and grandchildren. Tell them that ‘he who lives by the suicide bomber dies by the suicide bomber’—more artfully than that, of course. But appeal to the better angels of their nature. Are they angry at Israel? Yes. And they have a right to be. Do they want to be free from occupation? Of course. Acknowledge all that. But use your line you’re always quoting to us, that there’s ‘a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build up, a time for war and a time for peace.’ “

  “Ecclesiastes, Chapter Three,” MacPherson said, betraying the hint of a smile.

  “Right—tell the Palestinians that the time for killing and tearing down is over. Enough is enough. Tell them that tomorrow has to be a new day, a time for healing and building and making peace. Appeal to them to suppo
rt new leadership that will lead them in a new direction, and lead them to the state they’ve always wanted but never had. But for God’s sake, don’t tell them that the Israelis are about to invade the West Bank and Gaza. Don’t tell them that IDF tanks and helicopter gunships are going to start killing Palestinians all in the name of rescuing Jon Bennett and Erin McCoy.”

  The president leaned back in his chair and looked around at his senior advisors. Bennett could sense he was gaining ground, but the argument wasn’t won yet.

  “Jon, it’s Jack Mitchell again from CIA, can you hear me?” Yes, sir.

  “Look, I hear what you’re saying. But you’re sitting on a volcano, son, and it’s erupting. We’ve got a civil war on our hands. Three different Palestinian security forces are out there trying to butcher each other, trying to seize control of the post-Arafat environment. Somebody’s got to clamp down, provide some order, and do it pronto.”

  “I understand, sir,” Bennett cut in. “I do. You’re absolutely right—we can’t just sit back and ignore what’s happening here. The world can’t just turn a blind eye. Somebody has to go in and do the dirty work. But it cannot be the Israelis. An Israeli invasion would destroy everything the president is trying to achieve.”

  “Then who’s it going to be, the U.N.?” Mitchell snapped. “Come on, Jon, wake up. People are killing each other over there and your polls don’t mean squat. That ‘silent majority’ you talk about—all those Palestinians you say

  want peace—first of all, I’m not sure I buy the premise. But second of all, none of this so-called ‘silent majority’ is going to lift a finger to take on all these security forces. So a whole lot of innocent people are going to die, and who’s going to get blamed? Not Arafat. He’s dead. Not Mazen. He’s dead, Not the E.U. They’re not there. We’re going to get blamed. Why? Because we sent the Secretary of State to stir up a hornet’s nest. And if the Israelis don’t go in with an overwhelming show of force, and if we just sit back and watch thousands of Palestinians get slaughtered on the evening news, I don’t see how that exactly furthers the cause of peace. Do you?”