75

OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT, RAMALLAH, PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY

Ismail Ziad was apoplectic.

The longer he watched Clarke’s speech, the more enraged he became. At one point, he threw a shoe at the TV set. A moment later, he picked up the phone on his desk and heaved it across the room, narrowly missing an aide who had just entered the office but hitting a mirror and smashing it to pieces.

“Get me al-Azzam,” the Palestinian leader shouted. “Now!”

With Ziad’s primary phone no longer functioning, the aide pulled out his own mobile phone, dialed the Grand Mufti’s number from the phone’s contact list, and waited until the old man answered. “Your Excellency, I have President Ziad on the line for you.” Then he handed the phone over to his boss.

“Amin, are you there?”

“I am, Mr. President.”

“Are you watching this travesty?”

“Yes, yes, of course, but I —”

“Blasphemy, I tell you —this is blasphemy against our people and against our holy city,” the Palestinian president raged, cutting off the Grand Mufti in midsentence. “And you must stop it, Amin —you must never let this thing come to pass.”

Prince Abdullah was still at his desk.

A bank of TV monitors on the far wall of his office showed President Clarke delivering his address on six different networks, but all were on mute. The chief of Saudi intelligence had already read an advance text of the speech that CIA director Stephens had sent him hours before. Right now he had more important matters on his mind.

Summoning his chief of staff, the prince demanded to know if they’d heard from their source in Tehran. He did not use the man’s name. But the aide was one of the few people in the kingdom who knew exactly to whom his boss was referring —Dr. Haydar Abbasi, ostensibly the director of the Iranian space agency, though he was more precisely the head of Iran’s ballistic missile program.

“No, Your Highness,” the aide replied. “I’m afraid not.”

“Do we even know if he’s still alive?”

“Well, there was an item about him in the paper two days ago.”

“Saying what?”

“It was small, just a picture and a caption, really. He welcomed a delegation from Moscow to discuss plans for a joint exploratory mission to Mars.”

“Why wasn’t I informed?”

“You have been so busy preparing for His Majesty’s trip to al-Quds, I didn’t think it necessary.”

The prince stood, rubbed his bloodshot eyes, and took a swig of water from a bottle on his desk. “Fine, but we need more from him, and quickly. Can we contact him?”

“No, Your Highness —he was adamant from the outset that he will contact us, and we must never try to reach him.”

Just then, the phone rang. The chief of staff answered it, then asked the caller to hold. He hit the Mute button and turned to the prince. “It’s the American.”

“Dayton?”

“No, Ryker.”

“The DSS agent?”

“Yes, and he says it’s urgent.”

General Entezam had never seen Hossein Ansari so ill.

Even in the short time since their last meeting, the spiritual leader of the Iranian Revolution had lost weight. The man was emaciated. His skin was jaundiced. He could not get out of bed and could barely keep down a spoonful of broth.

Entezam had come to the residence to watch Clarke’s speech with the Supreme Leader and to brief him on his latest conversation with Abu Nakba. But as he sat alone by the man’s bedside, he knew it was not to be. Silently he prayed that Allah would have mercy on this giant he held so dear.

The man had accomplished so much in his lifetime. Now, in his final weeks of life, all Ansari wanted was to see vengeance exacted against the Americans and the Israelis for killing Alireza al-Zanjani and foiling his plans for Iran to have the Bomb. And all Entezam wanted was to share with Ansari the extraordinary news that Kairos, one of their most important proxies, would soon take out not only Clarke and Eitan but the Saudi monarch as well.

Privately, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps wished he could do the deed himself. What he would have given to actually be in the city of al-Quds, on the Haram al-Sharif, the very martyr chosen to go to paradise and send these three devils straight to the fires of hell. He did not know the name of the one who actually had been chosen. Abu Nakba had been vague with the details, not even indicating whether the assassin would be a man or a woman. Yet rather than take offense at Abu Nakba’s refusal to entrust him with the details of the very operation he was bankrolling, much less feed on the jealousy he felt toward the shahid or shahida preparing for glory, Entezam vowed to pray for this brave soul three times a day until the operation was complete. Whoever they were, they would need Allah’s strength to overcome all the cunning traps of Satan.

“Help me,” wheezed Ansari, his raspy, thin voice barely audible. “A basin —bring it quickly.”

Entezam stood back up and looked around the room for something suitable. The best he could find on short notice was a wastebasket. He grabbed it and brought it to Ansari, asking if this was what he wanted.

But the Supreme Leader never replied. Instead, he began to cough and then choke and then to vomit his own blood.