Evans didn’t volunteer an answer. Neither did National Security Advisor Bird and FBI Chief Mulligan. Only one other man could possibly speak: Morgan Taylor.
The vice president rose out of his chair. The very act made Henry Lamden sit down on the couch.
Morgan Taylor spoke calmly. “As DNI said, we’re still trying to get a handle on this.”
Evans seconded the comment. Mulligan, on the other hand, shifted in his seat. His man was still unconvinced about Roarke’s theory. For now, Bessolo argued that the time shift might be nothing more than a computer glitch, and Meyerson was guilty as sin.
Taylor addressed Jack Evans. “Jack, have you fully briefed the president on our own operations?”
Evans shot him a quizzical look.
“In Israel,” Taylor added.
“What operations?” Lamden demanded.
Evans cleared his throat. “Not yet.”
Lamden became more furious. “Not yet what?”
“Mr. President, it’s fairly standard,” Evans started. “We just don’t talk about it. But we have our own people in the Israeli government. Working within the Knesset.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
“For years. We do it. They do it. So I wouldn’t be too hasty with—”
“Excuse me,” Lamden continued. “Hasty? You are not to tell me what to do!” he shouted. “Do you understand, Mr. Director?
Evans noted his mistake. “I’m sorry. I didn’t intend it that way. You have every right—”
He didn’t get to finish the thought. The president interrupted again.
“You’re damned straight I have. And for that matter, I want to know exactly where you have placed your agents!”
“Are you certain, sir?” the National Director of Intelligence asked, shifting his eyes uncomfortably toward Morgan Taylor.
The ex-president got the signal. “Henry,” he said quietly, “sometimes it’s better we don’t know everything.”
Lamden was not to be dissuaded. “Don’t give me that goddamned Republican deniability bullshit. I’m in charge!”
Morgan Taylor had never seen this side of Lamden. But then again, Henry Lamden had never faced such pressure before. I have to calm him down, he thought.
“Henry, Jack can pull all the information you want. But reading it exposes you and the entire government. Let’s you and I sidebar this for later. Okay?”
He got a reluctant wave of the hand to move on. That’s when Taylor noticed that Lamden was beginning to perspire profusely.
“Henry, are you okay?”
“No, I’m not okay. I had an Israeli spy right here in my office.” The president realized beads of sweat were forming on his forehead. Lamden reached for a cloth napkin. After patting down, he poured himself a glass of water from the pitcher on the table beside him.
The president’s chief of staff took the opening to speak up. “So what you’re recommending is that we should simply forget about this and ignore the fact that we have a spook inside the Mossad?”
“Spooks. And not inside the Mossad. In the government. And I’m not saying we ignore it,” Taylor offered. “I think we should be indignant. Call Jacob Schecter. But the call should come from Jack. Not you or me, or the president.”
“He’s right,” Evans added. “I can get more done. Maybe a tradeoff. Information. An apology.”
“You better get an apology. A big fat public one.”
“We will demand it, just like before.”
Lamden shook his head. “You mean this isn’t the first time?”
“Far from it,” Taylor said, jumping back in. He was actually surprised the president didn’t know about the cases. “And it surely won’t be the last. But Henry, if we make too much of it, it could be the thing that brings down Blanca.”
“I don’t…” He started to say “care” when Taylor held his fingers to his lips.
“Yes, you do, Henry. You have to. And you will.”
“Now you’re telling me what to say and think. I don’t work that way, Morgan.”
“Politics and poker, Henry,” the vice president said with a slight laugh.
Lamden didn’t get the meaning.
“A song out of an old Broadway musical, Fiorello, about New York Mayor LaGuardia in the thirties. There was a lyric that said if politics and poker ran neck and neck, politics might be the better bet because you can usually stack the deck…or something like that,” Taylor explained. “It’s the way things are. Sometimes we stack the deck. Sometimes it’s stacked against us. Over the years we’ve held the most high cards.”
“Go back to your earlier point. This isn’t the first time?”
Taylor deferred to the FBI chief.
“Not by a long shot,” Mulligan said off the top of his head. “I can give you bullet points.”
“Why don’t you do that, Bob,” the new president said angrily.
“Okay. Not going all the way back…”
“Start wherever you want.”
“1974. And for the sake of argument, I’ll preface this with alleged. It’s best we leave it at that,” Mulligan advised. “The Ford White House. We were looking into selling AWACS to the Saudis. The proposal was consummated by Reagan, but in the process we traced possible leaks to the Mossad. You want to know their possible motive?”
“It would be nice to know,” Lamden growled.
“The Israeli Air Force didn’t particularly like the idea that their flights could be tracked by the Saudis, which they could have been.”
“You started in ‘74. Why do I feel there’s more coming?”
“Because there is,” Mulligan continued. “During Carter’s administration an alleged operation by a Mossad burglary unit — the Keshet, or ‘Arrow’ — against National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. There were rumors that he was anti-Israel, and the Mossad wanted to know what was our possible intent.”
“More?”
“More, sir. Reagan. Second term, through George the First. This time it was believed that James Baker was the surveillance target. Same reason as with Brzezinski: fear that he was anti-Israel. And then the Jonathan Jay Pollard case. Pollard, a former U.S. Navy analyst, was convicted in 1986 of selling sensitive U.S. military intelligence to Israel. He was given a life sentence. It was rumored that Pollard reported to someone higher in America’s intelligence community, but no ‘Mr. X’ has ever been unmasked, if one even existed. Still, Pollard’s conviction cooled contact between the CIA and the Mossad.
“Now, let’s go to 1997. The CIA, the National Security Agency, and the FBI searched for an Israeli spy, thought to be operating within the Clinton administration. The story broke in The Washington Post, but the hunt for the mole abruptly ended with no clear conclusion. There’s more, but believe me, I’d rather not get into it.”
Lamden looked more and more upset, but he urged Mulligan to continue.
“Okay, flash forward to the Clinton impeachment hearings. There were reports that the Israelis might have eavesdropped on conversations between Clinton and Monica.”
“Oh, great,” Lamden said.
Jack Evans went on. He recited the history from memory. “The next major flurry occurred in June 2001. This time, the buzz was over some one hundred Israeli students and employees of high-tech companies. According to reports, all of the subjects were questioned; some were said to have been imprisoned. The Justice Department acted on information that the Israelis may have been tasked to track al-Qaeda terrorists on American territory. Although unconfirmed, this wouldn’t be inconsistent with the Mossad’s activities in other parts of the world.”
“Meaning?” President Lamden demanded.
“That Mossad agents ran successful operations in Belgium, Norway, Jordan, and Egypt. And sometimes more publicly than privately. Over the years, Israel’s prime ministers consistently declared their willingness to hunt down terrorists and the enemies of Israel anywhere.