88

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL —14 DECEMBER

Marcus drove back to Ben Gurion International Airport.

Geoff Stone and Kailea Curtis were inbound from London, and he’d offered to pick them up at the airport. On the way, he called Oleg, hoping the Raven had come up with something useful, something that would help them crack this case and expose the Kairos network before it struck again. But once more Oleg had nothing.

The president met them in the Situation Room.

For the next forty-five minutes, McDermott, Stephens, and the directors of both the Secret Service and DSS again briefed the president on the high and rising risks of going to Jerusalem. They underscored the fact that they were still no closer to finding, much less capturing, Haqqani or al-Qassab or identifying anyone else that Kairos was working with in Israel generally or in Jerusalem in particular.

And there was more. Stephens explained that the head of Jordanian intelligence had called him the night before to express how worried he was about the upcoming summit and to ask for the opportunity to come to Washington to explain why.

“I told him not to bother,” Stephens said.

“Why not?” Clarke asked.

“Because I already knew what he was going to say.”

“Then enlighten me,” said an increasingly exasperated commander in chief.

“For starters, the Hashemites are convinced the Saudis are trying to seize control of the Temple Mount from them.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Article 9 of the 1994 peace treaty between Israel and Jordan explicitly states, ‘Israel respects the present special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in Muslim holy shrines in Jerusalem. When negotiations on the permanent status will take place, Israel will give high priority to the Jordanian historic role in these shrines,’” Stephens replied, citing the treaty from memory. “The text goes on to state that ‘the parties will act together to promote interfaith relations among the three monotheistic religions, with the aim of working toward religious understanding, moral commitment, freedom of religious worship, and tolerance and peace.’ As such, while the Israelis provide overall security for the Temple Mount and insist they maintain sovereignty over the city, the Jordanians are in charge of the Waqf. What’s more, the king of Jordan —who is himself a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad —sees the protection and oversight of these Muslim holy sites as his personal responsibility. But there is a real and growing concern in Amman that the Saudis, who of course oversee Mecca and Medina, are determined to persuade the Israelis to give them control of the Islamic holy places in Jerusalem. They’re worried that if the Israelis say yes, this would not only violate their treaty but could set off a political explosion inside Jordan that could destabilize the region.”

“How?” the president asked.

“Massive riots against Israel could erupt all across Jordan, calling on the king to rip up the treaty with Israel,” Stephens replied. “If the king were to refuse, the fear is that the masses could turn on him and call for him to step down.”

“Could any of that happen?”

“I certainly can’t rule it out. Look, as you know, sir, I have the greatest respect for the king. The U.S. has no greater or more loyal friend in the Arab world. But let’s be honest —he’s sitting on a volcano, surrounded by a forest fire, waiting for an earthquake. At least 70 percent of his population is Palestinian. Plus, he’s got more than a million Syrian refugees in his country. Most of them can’t stand the fact that Jordan has a peace treaty with Israel. Every few months, the parliament demands the king cancel the treaty, close the Israeli embassy, send the Israeli ambassador home, cancel the deal by which Jordan buys natural gas from Israel —the list of demands goes on and on. On top of which, most Jordanians can’t stand you, are furious to see our embassy moved to Jerusalem, and believe we are not treating the Palestinians in the West Bank fairly, to say the least. So, could that volcano blow? Yeah, it’s possible. And could your summit with the Saudis trigger the political earthquake inside Jordan that could cause the volcano to erupt? I wish I could rule it out, Mr. President. But I can’t.”

Clarke leaned back in his chair for several moments, processing all that he had heard. Just then the secure phone on the table rang. Picking it up, he was told the Saudi king was on the line.

“All right, that’s enough, gentlemen,” the president said, calling the meeting to an end. “I’m going to Jerusalem. I’m holding this summit. You guys do your jobs, and everything will be fine.”

Ali Haqqani lay on his bed in the Kairos safe house in Jerusalem.

The bed was piled high with blankets. The flat was not centrally heated, as his flat back in London had been. What’s more, the space heater in the corner didn’t work. As night fell, temperatures outside and inside the apartment building were dropping fast. The winds were picking up as well, rattling the windows and his soul.

Haqqani felt trapped. Actually, he clarified to himself, he didn’t just feel trapped. He was trapped. He had done what had been asked of him. Now it was al-Qassab’s job to get him out of harm’s way. Surely al-Qassab had a new set of papers and passport for him, along with new credit cards and a new mobile phone. The airport in Tel Aviv wasn’t safe. Haqqani knew that. But what about boarding one of the cruise ships that docked in Haifa every day? Barring that, his handler certainly had a way to slip him into Jordan or perhaps into Egypt via the border post south of Eilat, did he not?

Al-Qassab’s refusal to lay out a plan, much less give Haqqani all the new documentation he would need, didn’t make sense. Learning an entirely new alibi wasn’t easy. It shouldn’t be attempted in a few hours or even a day. It needed to be carefully thought through and precisely memorized, especially to get out of Israel, of all places. He was operating in the heart of enemy territory. It was not a matter of whether he would be questioned upon leaving the country, but for how long and how relentlessly. Haqqani could lie when he had to, but he was not particularly good at it. He was not a spy. He was a doctor —a surgeon —and there was no use pretending to be something he was not.

As he turned off the lamp beside the bed and lay there in the darkness, listening to the winter winds whistling across the mountaintop, he continued to mull al-Qassab’s refusal to lay out an exit strategy. It was unnerving, to be sure, but it was more than that, Haqqani concluded. It was an act of professional irresponsibility. It could put the success of the entire operation in jeopardy, and —

Haqqani suddenly sat bolt upright in the creaking antique bed. A thought had just occurred to him that had never dawned on him before, and the more he considered it, the more he wondered how he had not seen it earlier.

What if Mohammed al-Qassab had no plan to get him out of the country? What if the Syrian was planning to escape on his own and leave Haqqani to the mercies of the Israeli Mossad?