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JERUSALEM, ISRAEL

By dinnertime, the team was in Israel, dining with Prime Minister Eitan.

“He said all that?” asked the premier, setting down his glass of red wine.

“He did,” Dayton confirmed.

“And the king really wants to come here himself, not the crown prince?”

“The king himself,” the senator confirmed, winking at Annie.

Eitan turned to the only colleague he had invited to join them, Mossad director Asher Gilad. “What do you make of it, Asher?”

“Well, it’s stunning —no question —but it’s also entirely consistent with everything I know from my contact with the Saudis,” Gilad said. “At your direction, I’ve been working very closely with my counterpart in Saudi intelligence, Prince Abdullah bin Rashid. We’ve been speaking regularly. We met in London earlier this year, together with the Emirati spy chief. It was the Saudis who provided us critical intelligence on the Iranian plot to buy the warheads from Pyongyang. It was the Saudis who helped us track and intercept the shipment. And when I met the crown prince secretly in Cyprus, you’ll recall I came back and told you I thought he was ready to meet with you.”

“Yes, but that was the son, not the father,” said Eitan. “You’ve been telling me all along that the king was not as open-minded to making peace with us as the crown prince was —at least not until the Palestinians made a deal.”

“Apparently I was wrong. Does it matter? This is a gift, Ruvi. Don’t think about it. Take it before the father changes his mind.”

It was after two o’clock in the morning when they finally left the prime minister’s private residence. Once Eitan had said yes to the king’s offer, they’d drafted a plan for his visit, incorporating all the requests the Saudis had made. As Marcus drove the team back to the King David Hotel, the mood was giddy. This thing was on, and they had precious little time to put all the pieces in place.

Still, at Marcus’s insistence, they entered through the back and took a service elevator so as not to be spotted by anyone else in the hotel. They huddled in the senator’s suite, divvying up assignments. Senator Dayton called Bill McDermott on a secure satphone to brief him on the day’s events. Once McDermott was up to speed, he patched the senator through to a very happy President Clarke.

Pete, meanwhile, called the head of the Diplomatic Security Service, followed immediately by Carl Roseboro, deputy director of the Secret Service. He not only briefed them on the plan but requested that they reassemble the original advance team and put them on the next plane to Tel Aviv, followed by a larger team within the next twenty-four hours.

As he looked out over the twinkling lights of the Old City and the Mount of Olives, Marcus called Langley and asked to be put through to Richard Stephens. Two minutes later he was walking the CIA director through the plan. In two weeks —on Wednesday, December 17 —the president of the United States and the king of Saudi Arabia would arrive at Ben Gurion International Airport, Marcus explained. They would both land in the morning, within minutes of each other. Israeli fighter jets would escort both planes in. Israeli airspace would be closed to all other flights for twenty-four hours, and Patriot and Iron Dome antimissile and antirocket batteries would be set up around the airport, just in case.

The Israeli prime minister would host a massive welcome ceremony for POTUS and the king. They would have to hold it indoors, probably in an El Al hangar, due to the winter rains. The Israeli president, members of the cabinet, members of the Knesset —Israel’s parliament —foreign ambassadors, business leaders, religious leaders, and other VIPs would all be on hand, as would a seventy-two-member Israeli honor guard, just as when Sadat visited. The arrival would be covered by local and foreign media and broadcast live around the world.

Moving each entourage to Jerusalem would have to be discussed at length. Marcus said he and the advance team had drafted a plan using helicopters and motorcades, and they would prepare for both. The final call would be made at the last minute by U.S., Israeli, and Saudi security officials on the ground, based on weather and real-time threat conditions.

Marcus then explained that POTUS, the king, and the PM would visit the Dome of the Rock, and the king would take time to pray in the Al-Aqsa Mosque after their meeting with the Grand Mufti on the Temple Mount. All three principals also wanted to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum and memorial. That night, the prime minister would host a state dinner in honor of the king and the president.

The Saudi delegation would then RON —rest overnight —at the Waldorf in Jerusalem. In fact, the Saudis were planning to rent out the entire hotel for three days prior and one day after their departure to do security sweeps and bring in the king’s favorite foods and drinks, linens, china, and cutlery. The president and the American delegation would take over the entirety of the famed five-star King David Hotel. All credentialed media would be housed at the David Citadel Hotel.

On the following day —Thursday, December 18 —the prime minister wanted to host a working breakfast for the president and the king at his official residence. The three heads of state would get to know each other better and discuss the broad contours of a peace treaty, though both Faisal and Eitan asked the Americans to understand that this could only be a preliminary step. They could not possibly hammer out a final treaty so quickly, though both men said they would very much like to visit Camp David and hold further discussions there, as President Clarke had originally offered the Israelis and Palestinians.

The president, then the king, and finally the prime minister would address the Knesset, with gallery seating available by invitation only to foreign ambassadors to Israel. Finally, Marcus noted, there would be an elaborate departure ceremony at the airport, and both the Saudi and American leaders and their delegations would be wheels up no later than 3 p.m.

Director Stephens asked dozens of questions. The two men spoke for more than an hour. When they were finished, the director had only one more question. “What do you guys need from me to make this work?”

“Figure out who’s running Kairos, and do whatever is necessary to take him down.”