“Doesn’t the President know that we only have the best interests of our country at heart?” Her voice sounded wounded.
“No one doubts that, B.J…”
“Then why doesn’t he show it? Oh, that man!” She stomped a small foot. “He must know we import over half our oil now and that most of it comes from the Middle East. We”—she kept stressing the “we”—“must do all we can to keep that oil flowing to us.”
“I assure you, the President does understand that. But—”
“There are no ‘buts,’ “ she interrupted. He could hear steel in her voice now. “The way he is encouraging the Israelis angers our other friends. Heavens, they might, if they are provoked, and who could blame them the way he ignores them, decide to create another oil embargo.”
“Again, I assure you—”
“Assure me of what? That he is encouraging the Israelis in their own type of imperialism? That he doesn’t care about peace in that part of the world? That he doesn’t care about the concerns of our true friends? That Israel dictates our foreign policy? And now this talk of a national energy policy! Why … why”—she screwed up her courage to utter the dirtiest word she knew—“it’s … it’s … socialism!”
“He takes a broader view,” Fraser tried to explain. “He sees our national energy policy linked to the Middle East situation, the problems in the Soviet Union, our balance of trade, the budget deficit.” He regretted the last even as he said it.
“How dare he even think that we do not pay our fair share of taxes!” Allison believed what she was saying with all the fervor of a TV evangelist. She also believed in making a profit and knew how to turn an oil embargo to her advantage. She preferred to maintain the current way she did business importing oil, yet she did not want to be denied her profit-making options in case the Arabs decided to embargo the flow of oil. A national energy policy put too many limits on the amount of money she could make. It disturbed her that more and more senators and representatives in the U.S. Congress did not agree with her.
“B.J., please listen,” Fraser begged. “I cannot change the President’s view of the world.”
“He must be listening to someone,” she shot at him.
“Well, there is an Air Force lieutenant colonel, an expert on the Middle East, who recently came on board with the National Security Council.”
“Tom, doesn’t this remind you of that nice Marine under President Reagan? Surely, he must be telling the President the truth.”
“He sees the situation much as the President does.”
“Then get rid of him. Get someone responsible to take his place.” She pressed a button beside her chair and the young male secretary appeared almost instantaneously. “Please get Mr. Fraser’s coat,” she ordered.
After Fraser had left, Allison twiddled her fingers, thinking. The door opened and Tara Tyndle walked in. She gave the old woman a beautiful smile, poured herself a cup of tea, and sat down. “Well, Auntie?” Tara asked.
“I can’t believe how stupid they are.” B. J. Allison lumped anyone who disagreed with her into a pile of “theys.” “I do believe we are dealing with a hostile administration and Fraser does not have the influence with Pontowski that he led me to believe.” She continued to twiddle her fingers deep in thought. Tara waited. She recognized the signs. “Perhaps, the President needs something else to take his mind off the Middle East and his so-called national energy policy.”
Her fingers were at rest. B.J. Allison had made a decision. “Do you remember the unfortunate Watergate affair with Mr. Nixon?” Tara said nothing. “Perhaps we need something like that to occupy Mr. Pontowski’s time and energy. Are those nice two young reporters still working for that horrid newspaper?”
Tara arched an eyebrow. “No. But there are others.”
Shoshana sat in the shade of the building next to the bus stop outside the new chemical factory the Iraq Petroleum Company had built near Kirkuk and concentrated on the activity around her. She judged the time to be after ten o’clock, which meant Habish was over three hours late. He should have come out of the chemical factory with the other workers at shift change. Shoshana fought down her impatience, hating the waiting, and wondered what might have gone wrong. The gates of the factory opened and a silver blue Mercedes drove out. She recognized one of the occupants from when she had toured the plant with Is’al Mana, but no one in the car even glanced her way.
A policeman made his way through the crowd at the bus stop and asked a man dressed in a fairly clean Western-style suit for his identification papers. The policeman scanned the papers mechanically and grunted. He handed back the papers, glanced at Shoshana, ignored her, and moved on past. My disguise is working, she decided. She watched the policeman approach Mustapha Sindi who was sitting nearby. Again, the policeman repeated his demand for identification.
Shoshana watched Mustapha as he handed his papers over. You are a cool one, she thought. Mustapha Sindi had a chameleonlike ability to change identities instantly. She remembered how convincing he had been at the cemetery when he appeared as a mullah. Even Habish had been fooled and he had told Mustapha to meet them there. He was reaching for his Walther when Mustapha identified himself. After that, Mustapha had taken them to a house in Kirkuk where they could hide. The sponge bath she had taken while a woman washed her clothes revived her spirits and she had established an instant friendship with a teenage Kurdish girl who had helped her wash her hair. A meal of grilled lamb, Arabic salad, and freshly baked bread had worked magic and she had slept soundly for the first time in weeks.
The next morning, she had joined Habish as they waited for Mustapha to return. Habish explained that Mustapha was a Kurdish rebel fighting for his people’s independence from Iraq’s rule. The Israelis had supported the Kurds in their fight and through that connection had recruited Mustapha to help Mossad.
When Mustapha returned, he had a new set of identification papers and a factory pass for Habish that identified him as a worker in the new chemical plant. Habish quizzed her about her tour of the place with Mana until he had a good idea of the factory’s layout. Then he calmly announced that he was going inside.
“Haven’t we done enough?” she protested. The two men ignored her and plotted how Habish would enter the plant as part of the night shift crew and come out the next morning. Shoshana and Mustapha were to be waiting for him at the bus stop. If nothing else, they could listen to the workers talk and hear any rumors if he was caught.
As planned, Habish had mingled with other workers that evening and entered the plant during shift change. Now it was late the next morning and Habish had not come out. After the policeman had disappeared, Mustapha got up and moved past her heading for the truck. “Walk away,” he mumbled. “I’ll pick you up down the road.” She did as he said.
“What now?” Shoshana asked as they drove away in the truck.
“We come back tomorrow morning,” Mustapha replied. The waiting was back, bearing down with its weight.
The crowd at the bus stop the next morning was buzzing with a low murmur. As more workers came through the plant’s gates and joined the throng, the buzz grew and changed into a loud babble. Shoshana could catch enough words to understand that a massive search had been going on inside the plant. She fought down the urge to corner Mustapha and ask him what was happening.
Then she saw Habish come up to the gate with a large crowd of men. Each man had a slip of paper that the guards were collecting — an exit permit. Then it was Habish’s turn. The guard studied his pass and the exit permit. She could see him ask a question and Habish shrug in reply. Something was wrong. The guard motioned for another guard to come over as a bus pulled up to the stop. The crowd being held at the gate behind Habish did not want to miss the bus and started shouting and pushing. The guard held on to Habish with one hand and frantically checked passes and exit permits while the other guard tried to push his way through the crowd.