Bennett felt a gloom descending upon him that he couldn’t shake. He grieved for everyone suffering back home. He grieved, too, at the very thought that the worst was yet to come. But he had no time to grieve alone. Doron had more to say.
“Please tell President Oaks that the Temple project notwithstanding, I will help the American people in every way I can,” the prime minister continued.
All Bennett wanted to do was hang up, get in the back of the ambulance, and take care of his wife — to love her, to comfort her, and to hold her as the darkness began to overwhelm them both. But it didn’t matter. He knew he couldn’t. Not yet, anyway.
He asked Doron for an example.
“With Dmitri Galishnikov’s help, I’d be willing to sell Israeli oil to the U.S. at a significant discount below global market prices, and we can start this immediately.”
“I’m sure that would be very helpful,” Bennett replied, though his heart wasn’t in it. “I’m sure the president would be very grateful, as would the entire country.”
“Good, and there’s more,” Doron said.
Bennett waited, trying to stay focused.
Doron lowered his voice. “Mossad has a mole deep inside the North Korean military command structure.”
Bennett was suddenly alert again. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“We’ve been working with him for nearly a decade,” Doron explained. “He’s the one who told us about the North Korean nuclear tests a few years ago and the one who tipped us off to how closely Pyongyang was working with Iran on long-range ballistic missiles, back before the Day of Devastation.”
“And?”
“And he’s giving us incredibly valuable information on the most sensitive military thinking inside the country. He says it looks as though the DPRK is gearing up for a strike against Seoul. He says the leadership believes that with the U.S. government in chaos, this may be the best chance they’ve ever had. They think they can win, and he says he wouldn’t be surprised if the war starts in the next seventy-two hours or so.”
“Wait a minute,” Bennett said, trying to process yet another bombshell from the Israeli prime minister. “You’re saying North Korea is about to invade South Korea?”
“In the next two to three days, yes,” Doron confirmed. “What’s more, he’s convinced the DPRK was responsible for the nuclear attacks against the U.S.”
“Does he have proof?” Bennett asked.
“He’s gathering what he can. But he says the Legion has been using the country to create terror training camps. They’ve been running operations through North Korean embassies around the world. He even says Indira Rajiv has been through Pyongyang several times in the last few months.”
Bennett was stunned. Was Doron sure? Indira Rajiv?
Doron related what he knew about her, but it wasn’t much. She seemed to have formed some kind of partnership with the DPRK and the Legion. She was receiving payments from someone outside the country, though he didn’t know who.
“Can you find out?” Bennett asked.
“About the payments?” Doron asked.
“Anything you can,” Bennett stressed. “She’s a high-priority target, as you know.”
“Fine. I will ask him to get us more on her,” Doron agreed. “In the meantime, he made two points.”
“What are they?”
“First, he said your people at DOE should test the radioactivity at each of the blast sites. When they do, they should be able to determine that the plutonium used in each of the bombs came from the reactors at the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center, a hundred kilometers or so north of Pyongyang.”
“DOE?” Bennett asked, referring to the U.S. Department of Energy. “There is no DOE — it’s been obliterated.”
“I realize that, and so does he,” Doron said. “But the research couldn’t have all been kept in Washington, right? Don’t you keep stuff like that out at Sandia Labs or Los Alamos?”
“I don’t know,” Bennett said. “I really don’t. What’s the second thing?”
“He said that the speed with which the DPRK’s military is mobilizing suggests to him that they knew all along that the attacks against the U.S. were coming,” Doron replied. “He says he believes the leadership is executing a very carefully developed plan of attack, and if the U.S. has any hope of saving Seoul and the rest of the peninsula, they’d better start airlifting troops and moving naval assets in immediately.”
Thunder boomed overhead. Bennett felt nauseated. He was operating on no sleep, no food, and pure adrenaline.
“You believe this guy?” he asked.
“He hasn’t steered us wrong yet,” Doron said.
“How high up is he?”
“I can’t say, Jonathan. I’m sorry.”
“Mr. Prime Minister, you’re asking my president to base war decisions on this information,” Bennett noted. “We have to know. How close to the top is he?”
“Believe me, Jonathan, I understand,” Doron said. “But it’s very sensitive. This man is terrified. He wants out. He wants us to extract him. Honestly, I don’t know if we can — not in the next two or three days — not without everyone at the top of the food chain over there missing him.”
“But it’s fair to say he’s a very senior official?” Bennett pressed.
“I really can’t say any more than I have,” Doron said.
“I know,” Bennett sighed. “We have our national interests, and you have yours.”
“I’m giving you as much as I can — advance warning of a war your government doesn’t know is coming,” Doron responded. “The president is fixated on China. But with all due respect, I think he’s wrong. China’s leaders don’t have anything to gain by nuking you. But the North Koreans? Well, that’s a different story. Their president is a lunatic — an absolute psychopath.”
“You think he’d really try to decapitate the American government just to get the South back?” Bennett asked.
“Frankly, Jonathan, I think he’s capable of anything,” Doron said. “I will share all the intel this source gives us before we pull him ouT — if we can pull him ouT — and believe me, he’s a treasure trove. He can provide detailed targeting info on every sensitive military and industrial site in his country. And that could come in very handy for Secretary Trainor and his staff, especially if the president chooses a fast strike.”
“What do you want in return?” Bennett asked.
“You know very well what we want,” Doron replied without hesitation. “The president gets Salvador Lucente and the U.N. to back off. We’re not giving up the Temple project. I don’t care what Lucente offers us, or how much of a stink he makes. I’m not compromising on the Temple, and that’s final. That said, however, everything else is on the table.”
“What do you mean, everything?” Bennett asked.
“I mean everything,” Doron repeated.
“Even the peace proposal Lucente has been shopping around?”
“Even that,” Doron said.
Yet again, Doron had caught Bennett off guard. Breathing life into the Arab-Israeli peace process seemed laughable, after all. Bennett had all but given up hope, especially since work on the Temple had begun. Perhaps his tactical pessimism had gotten the better of him.
“You would really consider Lucente’s plan?” Bennett inquired, still not believing he had heard the prime minister correctly.