The Last Days

  The airport that serviced the Rock wasn’t the world’s busiest, or its safest. The numbers told the story. It was true that Prince Charles and Princess Diana flew into Gibraltar on the way to their honeymoon cruise on the royal yacht Britannia. But they were the exception. Of the 6 million tourists who visited each year, less than a hundred thousand came by plane. Locals claimed no atheist had ever landed there. Perhaps someone could be an atheist when he or she got on a plane bound for Gibraltar, people would say. But nobody who’d ever encountered the fierce crosswinds and harrowing approach into a runway jutting a half mile into the Atlantic and traversing directly across the peninsula’s busiest street ever got off that plane without thanking God for surviving the landing.

  Even from this distance, they could now see the distinctive orange-and-purple letters of the FedEx logo, and both silently hoped their “package” was unharmed. The Sunday sky was overcast and chilly. Two new storms were brewing—one was coming down the coast of Spain from the North Atlantic, the other was sixty or seventy miles eastward over the Mediterranean. They were poised to make an unusually harsh winter even worse, but forecasters said Gibraltar should have at least a few days of respite until the new fronts moved in, and Bennett and McCoy were grateful. They needed to be outside for a while. They needed some fresh air. And they were looking forward to seeing Dr. Eliezer Mordechai again. He’d been a good friend and a wise mentor for them both. He’d been an invaluable asset in helping them understand how best to negotiate with his fellow Israelis. Better yet, he said he was “bearing gifts from afar,” whatever that meant.

  Bennett and McCoy sat alongside the tarmac in the back of a black, armor-plated Chevy Tahoe, not far from two navy Seahawks waiting to take the SEALS back to their base at Rota, Spain, when this mission was done. Tariq was at the wheel of the Tahoe, scanning the environment from behind his aviator sunglasses. Four more agents from ST-8’s Gold Team watched over them and their surroundings from a minivan twenty yards away. Sa’id and Doron were still safely inside the “Mount of Olives” It wasn’t time to let them outside. Not just yet.

  Fifteen minutes later, Bennett, McCoy, and Dr. Mordechai were sitting inside a cafe halfway up the Rock. They ordered fish and chips and asked the former Mossad chief all about his trip and his health while their security team took up positions inside and out of the restaurant.

  “In the spirit of peace and friendship, allow me to offer a toast,” McCoy said, holding up her glass. “To Dr. Eliezer Mordechu, who absolutely, positively had to be here overnight—and wasn’t.”

  The three clinked glasses. Mordechai and McCoy had a good laugh. Bennett seemed far away, worried about his mother, worried about the impact Marcus Jackson’s front page story in The New York Times was going to have on the peace process.

  “Thanks for coming,” McCoy offered. “We really appreciate it.”

  “Not at all,” the old man replied. “It’s my pleasure. I’m sorry for the delay.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Actually, today’s a good day. We’ve given our two ‘friends’ the day off to consult with their ‘friends,’ so for the first time in too long, we’ve got a little time on our hands.”

  Mordechai nodded his appreciation to McCoy and then turned back to Bennett.

  “Good, good. Now, Jonathan, what’s the latest with your mother? I’ve been worried.”

  Bennett’s already gloomy expression darkened further. His pain was barely contained under the surface, and Mordechai could immediately sense it wasn’t a topic he wanted to discuss, especially after the update he’d received the night before. Fortunately McCoy could see it as well and graciously stepped in.

  “Someone’s using Jon’s old cell phone—the one he used at GSX. They made two calls to his aunt in Buffalo on New Year’s Eve, and now they’ve electronically withdrawn several hundred dollars from Mrs. Bennett’s checking account.”

  “How would they have gotten the phone? And the PIN number?”

  “We have no idea. Jon forgot the phone at his mom’s house when he was visiting there for a few days, after coming back from the hospital in Germany. He asked her to look for it, but she never found it. She doesn’t have a cell phone herself. Hasn’t ever used one or wanted one. And she almost never withdraws large amounts of money from her checking account.”

  “Can’t the FBI track the cell signal?” asked Mordechai. “We do it all the time.”

  “They’re trying. But apparently, whoever’s got the phone is pretty smart. They’re keeping it off until they make a call. All the calls have been very quick, none more than a few minutes. And the FBI doesn’t want to call the phone directly for fear it might tip off the terrorists, if it’s in the hands of terrorists.”

  Mordechai could see Bennett’s discomfort intensifying, so he shifted gears.

  “Hey, how about that gift I promised you?” he asked, reaching into his briefcase and pulling out a gift-wrapped package about the size of a shirt box.

  “Gifts are good,” said McCoy as she cleared away some plates and glasses to make room. “What have you got?”

  Mordechai slid the package over to McCoy to do the honors, as Bennett was staring blankly out the window.

  “A file?” McCoy blurted out, not bothering to hide her disappointment. ‘You got us a file? You know we’ve got these in America, Dr. Mordechai.”

  “You don’t have this one.” The old man grinned.

  Intrigued, she glanced around the room. It was almost three in the afternoon. The place was nearly deserted. Sure no one was watching, she opened the brown folder. The first page was a spread sheet in Arabic.

  “What’s this, your income taxes?” she quipped.

  “Keep reading.”

  She did for a few moments, and a few pages, then looked back up.

  “How’d you get this?”

  “I have my sources,” he said, lighting up his pipe and taking a few puffs.

  “I know, but really, how’d you get this?”

  Sweet smoke filled the air around their table. Bennett turned back from the windows and looked at McCoy, then at Mordecliai.

  “What are you guys talking about?”

  The former Mossad chief had both their attention. Now he was ready to talk. He took a few more puffs on his favorite pipe, then leaned forward and began to whisper.

  “You asked me to follow the money, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So I did.”

  “And? What’d you find?”

  “It’s worse than we imagined.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The story Mordechai proceeded to tell sent chills down their spines. On the first night of Operation Palestinian Freedom, U.S. forces, at the suggestion of Israeli intelligence, raided two seemingly innocuous warehouses in central Ramallah. Both were owned by Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. Neither seemed to have any strategic significance. But the gun battle to secure both facilities had been fierce, and now Washington knew why. Inside was a treasure trove—top-secret files of Arafat’s dealings with other Arab and Islamic countries and organizations, including banking records, financial spreadsheets, phone records, written and electronic correspondence, memos, as well as transcripts of meetings and phone calls.

  The files had been airlifted by helicopter to a secret IDF base near the Sea of Galilee. There, U.S. and Israeli officers began copying and cataloguing everything. The process would likely still take another week or two, Mordechai said, after which everything would be returned and put back in its place. In the meantime, however, Arab-speaking linguists and intelligence analysts were beginning to translate what appeared to be the most important documents.

  “They’ve uncovered a money trail you wouldn’t believe,” said Mordechai.

  “Try me,” said Bennett, now fully engaged.

  “For starters, just take a guess at how much money since 1998 the Saudis have pumped into the hands of Yasser Arafat, his henchmen, and the other Islamic extremist groups in the territories to cond
uct ‘martyrdom operations’ against us?”

  “I have no idea. A hundred million?”

  “Not even close.”

  “Five hundred million?”

  Mordechai shook his head.

  “A billion? asked McCoy, incredulous.

  “That’s what we thought,” Mordechai admitted, “a billion and change.”

  “Not true?”

  “Not even close.”

  “Well?”

  “You ready for this?” Mordechai asked, then pulled out a pen, and began writing on a clean paper napkin: 15,442,105,150 Saudi riyals.

  “What’s that in real money?” asked Bennett.

  “No pun intended?”

  “Very funny.”

  Mordechai smiled, then wrote down the translation—$4 billion U.S.

  Bennett couldn’t believe it. He just stared at the figure for a few moments, then looked at McCoy. She, too, was stunned.

  “You’re telling me the Saudis gave the Palestinians four billion dollars since 1998 to wage war against Israel?” asked Bennett.

  “That’s what I’m telling you.”

  “All to Arafat?”

  “No, some went to the Palestinian Authority. A lot of it went directly to the PLO, Fatah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad—before we destroyed them a few years ago—and more recently to Al-Nakbah, which is slowly picking up the pieces left behind by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Most of the money, though, does seem to have gone through Arafat and his henchmen. The unifying factor was an organization’s willingness to conduct, facilitate or condone jihad—including suicide bombings—against Israeli civilians.”

  “How did it all work?”

  “We’re still piecing that together,” said Mordechai, pulling several documents from the file. “Since the Six Day War in ‘67, the Saudi government as well as many wealthy Saudi individuals have funneled money to the Palestinian leadership through a number of so-called charitable organizations. The first and oldest is the Popular Committee for Assisting Palestinian Mu-jahideen. A second and more recent one is called the Support Committee for the Al-Quds Intifada and the Al-Aqsa Fund. And there are others. Since the late ’90s, the Saudis have dramatically stepped up their giving, and earmarked large amounts of it to the families of suicide bombers and others killed or wounded in operations against Israel. They say it’s for humanitarian purposes, for families grieving over their losses. But each family gets a check for five to ten times its normal annual income. It’s clearly a payoff for families

  to brainwash their children to give themselves up for the cause while they get the cash.”

  Bennett and McCoy sifted through the documents, skimming the English translations and trying to grasp the magnitude of what they were looking at.

  “It’s not easy to move huge amounts of cash like that,” McCoy observed.

  “Apparently it’s easier than we thought. The recoids seem to indicate that vast amounts of Saudi funds were wire transferred from a bank in Jeddah to the Palestinian Authority Treasury Department. We’ve even uncovered the main account number.”

  “How come nobody’s told Erin and me about this yet?”

  Mordechai scooped up a forkful of fish and considered how to answer that.

  “They think you’ve got enough on your plate. They don’t want you focused on anything but making peace.”

  “So why are you telling us now?” asked McCoy.

  Mordechai said nothing. He took yet another forkful of food and poured himself another cup of coffee. Bennett could see the mischievous twinkle in his eye.

  “Dr. Mordechai seems to be sending us a little message,” said Bennett.

  “Oh, really?” said McCoy. “And what’s that?”

  Bennett looked over at Mordechai and raised his eyebrows, but the mystery man didn’t take the bait.

  “Please, go right ahead,” said Mordechai. “You’re doing fine.”

  So Bennett continued.

  “Making peace, according to the good doctor, isn’t simply about cutting a deal, good as that might be. It’s time to follow the money—and cut it off.”

  McCoy looked back at Dr. Mordechai.

  “How’s he doing?” she asked.

  “He’s getting warmer.”

  “All right, Jon, carry on.”

  Bennett wiped his mouth with a napkin, and took a few sips of water.

  “If I’m hearing him right, he’s saying the suicide bombers and other terrorists on the front lines are largely motivated by ideology, religious and political. They want to do something heroic, something they’ll be remembered for,” Bennett continued. “But Dr. Mordechai doesn’t believe their leaders—the men who send these bombers into battle, the men who are more than willing to sacrifice hundreds of their own countrymen while they themselves live in walled compounds, surrounded by dozens of bodyguards, driven around in bulletproof limousines—such leaders aren’t driven purely

  by a cause, certainly not the glory of Islam. They’re driven by old-fashioned greed.”

  “So the whole Palestinian liberation movement is corrupt?” asked McCoy. “Nobody’s fighting for the good of the cause?”

  “I didn’t say that,” said Mordechai.

  “Then what are you saying?”

  Bennett was tracking with Mordechai, so he continued.

  “Dr. M. here isn’t saying there aren’t plenty of foot soldiers willing to die for the cause. There are. But for the old guard running the show, the war against Israel and us is now a multibillion-dollar business. Which means that if our little peace deal has any chance of working over the long haul, then we’ve got to get a whole lot more serious about pressuring the Saudis to cut off the cash.”

  “True,” said Mordechai. “The Saudis are a very serious problem. But it’s not just the Saudis. The Iranians are doing the exact same thing, and far too few people are paying attention. Think about it. They’re directly across the Persian Gulf from the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates. They’ve got massive reserves of oil and gas. And what are they doing with all that money? Building a modern society? Educating and employing their young people? No. The mullahs want to rebuild the Persian Empire. And with Iraq out of the way now, they just may have a shot. They’re buying weapons from the Russians, who are so broke they’ll sell to anyone for the right price. They’re buying nuclear power plants from the Russians. Why? Because they need nuclear power? Of course not. They’re sitting on some of the richest petroleum reserves in the world. No, the Iranians are building nuclear bomb factories, and the Russians are helping them. And while they’re at it, they’re building a new worldwide terrorist network as well. Once they helped fund Hamas and Hezbollah and the rest. Now it looks like they’re funding, housing and aiding Al-Nakbah, a terror network that I’m beginning to think may be more dangerous than all of its predecessors.”

  “Al-Nakbah? Why’s that?” asked Bennett.

  “You’ve seen the transcripts of the interrogations of your old friend Stuart Iverson?”

  “No. Have you?”

  Mordechai gave him another mischievous smile.

  “What are you talking about?” asked Bennett, astounded. “How could you have possibly seen the transcripts? There are only a handful of people in the world who even know we cut a deal with him, much less that he’s actually talking.”

  “I guess I’m one of them—the president cut Iverson a deal a couple of

  days ago. Took the death penalty off the table. Now he’s singing like the Dixie Chicks.”

  McCoy couldn’t believe it either. Who was this guy?

  “All right, so what’s he saying?” she asked.

  “He’s painting a portrait.”

  “Of who?”

  “Of Gogolov and Jibril—their personalities, their motives, their objectives—unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. These guys are scary. But they’re also smart. They’re playing both sides of the street. Ostensibly they’re an independent organization, started to wage jihad against the Russians in Chechnya. But they’ve expande
d—metastasized. Jibril is working his Iranian connections. Gogolov is working his Saudi connections. And it’s working, better than we realized.”

  “What else?” asked Bennett.

  “From what I can see, we’ve all been missing the forest for the trees. We’ve all focused on Iraq and this civil war and cutting this peace deal, and we should be. Don’t get me wrong. These are important battles in the war on terror. But it’s now clear that there’s something else going on here. Another evil is growing in the shadows—Gogolov and Jibril—Al-Nakbah. They’re planning something. I don’t know exactly what it is. I’m not sure if Iverson knows exactly. But it’s worse than anything we’ve seen so far. Their fingerprints are everywhere. And what’s beginning to worry me is that if we don’t deal with this threat head-on—and soon—the consequences could be catastrophic.”

  “Sir, we got a hit.”

  “Talk to me.”

  “Bennett’s cell phone—-it just went live.”

  “I need a location.”

  “Hold on. Hold on.”

  “Come on, come on, let’s go.”

  “Just a second, the computer’s triangulating the cell towers right now.”

  “Come on, come on.”

  “Give me a second, sir, we’ve almost got it.”

  It was just before eleven o’clock Sunday night in New York. The voice of the senior ELINT officer was secure, thanks to the Bureau’s digitally encrypted wireless network. Still, it was muffled. He could barely be heard over the roar of the helicopter as the surveillance team maintained its round-the-clock vigil over Manhattan. Still, the message got through and a bolt of adrenaline shot through the entire team.

  The lead chopper pilot contacted FBI Operations in Washington. A minute later, Scott Harris burst into the room and got the update from the senior watch officer on the night shift. Forty-five seconds after that, the location came through.

  “Sir, you’re not going to believe this.”