“Why not? It’s the safest place in the world,” Rajiv said. “There are hardly any foreigners here. The CIA doesn’t have any assets on the ground here. Satellites can’t track me if they don’t know I’m here. And who would have expected me to come here? It was the perfect place to hide.”
“Perfect,” Bennett asked, “or only?”
Rajiv shrugged. “What’s the difference?”
70
Rajiv stared at the ceiling for several minutes.
Then she continued her story. Her words were coming fast now, as if she wanted to get her confession over with as quickly as possible.
“As soon as I arrived, I began building a team,” she explained. “I recruited agents from the Legion and DPRK special forces. We mapped out a plan. I paid everyone in cash. It was all going fine. But I swear to you, Jonathan, it wasn’t until the last minute that I heard that Tariq and the North Koreans had decided to go nuclear. Apparently Tariq had concluded that he could not only kill MacPherson, he could eliminate the U.S. as a current or future threat to any of the plans he and Al-Hassani were brewing.”
“So why did the North Koreans agree?” Bennett asked.
“Because they’re psychopaths,” Rajiv said. “The leadership in Pyongyang figured if they worked with Tariq to decapitate the U.S., they could clear the way to seize the rest of the peninsula, and then Japan.”
Bennett felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Something icy was moving in this room again. He wanted out.
But Rajiv wasn’t done. “You have to know, Jonathan, about the alliance that is being created behind Washington’s back.”
“Iraq and North Korea?”
“No, that’s just the tip of the iceberg,” Rajiv insisted. “Babylon is flush with petrodollars, and they’re using them to buy allies. It’s not just North Korea. It’s China. It’s India. It’s Pakistan. It’s Venezuela. It’s the E.U. It’s Lucente.”
Bennett winced. “Salvador Lucente.”
“Bought and paid for by Al-Hassani.”
“You sure it’s not the other way around?” Bennett asked.
Rajiv shook her head. A cloud seemed to be coming over her at the very mention of Lucente’s name.
Bennett wasn’t so sure she was right about the secretary-general. Lucente had his own ambitions, he knew all too well. He might be placating Al-Hassani now, but that could all change in the blink of an eye. Still, for now, none of that was relevant.
“So,” he asked, “why did you call me?”
Tears began to streak down Rajiv’s cheeks. “I told you, Jonathan, I didn’t know who else to talk to,” she admitted, wiping her eyes but unable to stop crying. “As soon as I learned what was about to happen, I was horrified. But I was in no position to stop it. I never imagined Tariq and the North Koreans would go nuclear. It was never what I wanted. You have to believe me.”
“How can I?” Bennett asked. “You’ve just admitted to masterminding the assassination of the president of the United States.”
“But not with nuclear weapons,” Rajiv insisted, the tears coming harder now. “I wanted to humble America, not annihilate her. I wanted to bring about some kind of balance, not tip the scales completely.”
Bennett sat silently for several minutes, watching Rajiv cry, weighing the implications of what she had said, what she had done, and wondering what might happen next. But the truth was, he had no idea what had been set into motion, or how little time either of them had.
“What have I done?” Rajiv sobbed. “I have killed my husband. I have killed my best friend. I have brought about such shame…”
She could not finish the sentence. After another moment, she tried to compose herself, but it was a losing battle. She got up, dusted herself off, and walked over to Bennett. He stood as she approached. The closer she got, the more frail she looked, and she was shaking now, shaking and pale. Bennett almost felt sorry for her.
She was holding the 9 mm in one hand. With her other, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a flash drive. She handed it to Bennett. “Here,” she said, almost in a whisper. “I want you to have this.”
“What is it?” Bennett asked, taking the drive.
“Everything,” she said, wiping her eyes again. “Names. Dates. Locations. Amounts. Plans. Digital photos of documents. Bank records. SWIFT codes. The entire conspiracy. I wish it were more. I’m sorry it’s too late. But…”
Her voice trailed off. Her eyes were glassy, her pupils dilated. “You believe in heaven, don’t you, Jonathan?”
Bennett nodded, surprised by the question.
“Do you think Erin is there?” Rajiv asked.
“I know she is, Indira,” Bennett replied.
“When you get there, when you see her, please tell her I’m sorry, will you?” Rajiv said, the tears coming again, and harder now. “For everything.”
“You can tell her yourself when it’s time,” Bennett said, suddenly wondering if Rajiv was open to hearing the gospel.
But she shook her head and looked away. “No,” she said, though it was almost to herself. “It’s too late for me now.”
“It’s not, Indira,” Bennett said. “Jesus loves you. He died for you. He wants to forgive you. All you have to do is say yes.”
“I can’t, Jonathan,” she said, backing away and refusing to make eye contact. “I made my deal. I sealed my fate. I couldn’t go back, even if I wanted to.”
“It isn’t too late, Indira.”
“It is,” she said, moving toward the door.
“It’s not,” Bennett pleaded. “As long as you’re still living, as long as you’re still breathing, you still have time. You can pray with me right now and give your life to Christ.”
“I can’t,” Rajiv said, her body convulsing in sobs.
“You can,” Bennett insisted. “I’ll show you how. I’ll walk you through it.”
“No,” she said suddenly, with an air of finality that seemed to suck all the oxygen out of the room. “It’s too late. It’s over. I’m sorry.”
And before Bennett could react, she lifted her pistol, stuck it in her mouth, and pulled the trigger.
71
Automatic gunfire filled the air.
As the unmarked Black Hawk came up over the ridge, the Israelis opened fire first, unleashing rockets into the guard towers, radio antennae, electric facilities, and telephone switching equipment and taking out any guard on the ground who brandished a weapon. A moment later, Captain Arik Gilad slapped his men on their backs and hurried them toward the open side doors of the chopper.
“Go, go, go.”
A dozen commandos fast-roped to the ground, six on each side, covered by three snipers still inside the Black Hawk, now rising out of RPG range and circling the compound. Gilad was the last man down, but once on the ground he split the team in two and took the lead of “Red Knight One.”
Bennett stood there in shock.
He stared at Indira Rajiv’s lifeless body. And the corpses of the two Legion operatives she had shot earlier. He stared at the bloody floor. Then he heard the helicopter and the gunfire, and the room began to spin.
Gilad moved quickly.
Using fast bursts of covering fire and tossing two grenades through a nearby door, the daring Israeli captain took his squad into cell block D-6. With thermal imaging from an Israeli spy satellite hovering in geosynchronous orbit over the Koreas in the lead-up to possible hostilities there, as well as the last transmission of intel supplied by the Israeli mole in Pyongyang, Mossad chief Avi Zadok and his team had narrowed Bennett’s possible location to one of five different buildings.