33

GENERAL INTELLIGENCE DIRECTORATE, RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA

“How long ago did this come in?” the watch officer asked.

“Within the hour,” said his deputy. “I brought it directly to you as soon as it was translated.”

“And you’re absolutely certain of the source?”

“The source? Yes. The accuracy of what he’s telling us? No.”

The watch officer, dressed in military fatigues and combat boots, quickly exited the operations center and headed for the elevators. When one of the doors opened, he entered, inserted his passkey, and pressed the button for the top floor. As the door closed, he stood there alone, his mind racing. The implication of the message was chilling. So was the risk to the source they had code-named Kabutar, which in Farsi meant “pigeon.” If Kabutar were found out, he’d be slaughtered —that was, if he hadn’t already been found out and was even now being used to feed them disinformation. How much longer could they keep him in place? Then again, how could they pull him out? They had no contingency plans for this.

Two minutes later, the watch officer was standing outside the immense corner office of Prince Abdullah bin Rashid, Saudi’s director of the General Intelligence Directorate, or GID. When the officer informed the prince’s aide-de-camp that he needed to speak with the man immediately, he was told the director was on an important call and had given explicit instructions not to be disturbed.

“He will want to be disturbed for this,” said the officer calmly.

The aide stared into the officer’s eyes, then told him to wait. He rapped twice on the door to the director’s office and entered alone. Thirty seconds later, he reemerged and nodded for the watch officer to enter.

“I understand you have heard from Kabutar,” said the prince, standing behind his massive oak desk.

“Yes, sir.”

“Just now?”

“Correct.”

“How long has it been since we heard from him last?”

“More than a month —that’s why I thought you’d want to know immediately.”

“Has anyone else seen the transcript?”

“Just my deputy, the translator, and myself, per your explicit orders.”

“Give it to me,” the prince ordered.

The watch officer approached the desk and handed over the handwritten transcription. The prince read it quickly, then waved the man out of the room.

WEST BANK, PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY

Marcus remained expressionless.

His eyes were trained on the eyes and hands of the two Palestinian bodyguards he’d been assigned to monitor. Thus far, the tensions in the room were as serious as any official meeting he’d ever witnessed. They were political tensions, the product of a seemingly unbridgeable gulf between two governments. They seemed unlikely to erupt into violence, yet all of Marcus’s training had prepared him to expect the unexpected.

Ziad finally looked up. “General Evans, do you really expect my government to accept a proposal from an administration which has shown nothing but hostility toward me and my people?”

“Mr. Chairman, with respect, we have shown no hostility toward you or toward the Palestinian people. Since the midnineties and the signing of the Oslo Accords, the American government has provided the Palestinian people more than $5 billion in economic assistance through USAID. Since 2012, we’ve provided another $1.7 billion in economic grants to improve Palestinian health care, water, sanitation, infrastructure, and security assistance. This is far more than any other country, including any Arab country. Does not this generosity attest to our respect for both you and your people?”

“You know full well, General, that most of that aid predates the Clarke administration, the most hostile American White House we’ve ever encountered.”

“To the contrary, President Clarke took office reaching out his hand to you in friendship and cooperation. He immediately invited you to the White House and treated you with great honor. He followed up by coming to meet with you here. Secretary of State Whitney also came to meet with you repeatedly in the early months of the administration, as did I. It was your decision, Mr. Chairman, to cut relations with us and refuse to meet with any senior American officials, the president included, until the exception which you made today. Rather than show gratitude to the American people and our elected leaders as your single greatest benefactors, you chose a path of hostility and disrespect. Perhaps such actions were rewarded by previous administrations. But President Clarke asks me to assure you, as a friend, that those days are over.”

“Disrespect?” Ziad fumed, leaning forward. “How dare you accuse me and my government of disrespect. Aside from your little preamble a few moments ago, your president has steadfastly refused to acknowledge the pain and suffering of the Palestinian people, refused to acknowledge our universal right of self-determination under the U.N. Charter, and refused to unequivocally declare his support for a Palestinian state, though he has been pressed on this issue time and time again. What has he done instead? He has slashed economic assistance to the P.A., slashed funding to UNRWA, unilaterally moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, publicly declared Jerusalem the capital of the Jews, and repeated over and over again that Jerusalem is ‘off the table.’”

“West Jerusalem is off the table,” the general said quietly. “East Jerusalem, on the other hand, is most assuredly on the table.”

“That’s not what the president has been saying.”

“With respect, Mr. Chairman, that’s exactly what he’s been saying. I have talked about this with him at length. He has stated clearly that the precise boundaries of Jerusalem are subject to negotiation. On this point he could not have been clearer. Indeed, every final status issue is on the table, but only if you come back to the table.”

“Why should I come back to the table?”

“Because you’ll never get what you want —what your people want and deserve —if you don’t.”

“I’m a patient man,” Ziad said. “We are a patient people. We can wait. Time is on our side.”

“No, my friend, it’s not. You and your predecessors have said no to every single proposal for a Palestinian state since 1947. What do you have to show for it? You’ve lost control of Jerusalem. You’ve lost control of Gaza. Seventy percent of your own people want you to resign immediately. And why? Because a third of them are unemployed. Most of them live in poverty. Far too many of them live in squalor. Meanwhile, the Israelis have become a global technological superpower. They have the most vibrant economy in the region. The most powerful army. With every year that goes by, Israel grows stronger and the Palestinians grow weaker. The train is leaving the station. If you don’t get on board now, it may very well pass you by forever.”