Sami smiled ironically. “It always comes down to that, doesn’t it? I have an Arabic name, so I’m biased. So all the Jews in the CIA are biased for Israel? Will you say that?”
“That’s ridiculous—”
“Yet you accuse me—”
“Because of what you are saying, and how you are behaving. You are being irrational.”
“Jonathan Pollard, an American Jew, is in jail for spying on the U.S. for Israel. Right?”
“Yes, but—”
“That isn’t my imagination. He was paid by Israel to steal secrets from this country. They targeted us. To spy on us.”
“They expressed regret—”
“For getting caught!”
“It was an unusual circumstance. I’m sure those wounds have long been healed.”
Sami was discouraged and showed it. “No, they haven’t. Not as long as he’s in jail, and they keep bringing his name up every chance they get. He’s their boy.” Sami headed toward the door. “And he’s not the only one.” He waited for some reaction to show on Kinkaid’s face. It did. Just a twitch and a glance away. “And you know it.”
“Too many novels,” Kinkaid said.
Sami’s intense face showed he didn’t think it was a time to be lighthearted. “No. Not novels. But I have read of the Mossad’s espionage in the United States. I’ve read of their penetration of the highest levels of the United States government by Mega.” He stopped when he saw the look of horror on Kinkaid’s face.
“You know about Mega?” Kinkaid whispered. The tension in the room was remarkable. No one breathed. “How?”
“By reading books I get at Barnes and Noble,” Sami replied. “Is there some truth to it?”
“There have been rumors.”
“I’ll say,” Sami said. “And there’s a file three inches thick about the investigation conducted jointly by the FBI and the Agency to find this Mega. But the investigation was conducted by idiots, and they never found him. They have several documents in Hebrew, and the translations are wrong—”
Kinkaid smiled weakly, “So now you speak Hebrew?”
“Of course I do, ancient and modern. I’ve studied all the Semitic languages. If you had ever read my résumé you would know that.”
Kinkaid was angry. Sami was lashing out recklessly. The entire task force was at risk of being sidetracked. “That was a long time ago. Mega was never found. It isn’t known if he really even existed.”
“No, the investigation was called off!” Sami said loudly, moving aggressively toward Kinkaid. “Because right when they were closing in on the answer, certain information was brought up about a certain President’s proclivity to rendezvous with a certain intern. It was made known that the Mossad had tapes of their conversations. Suddenly the order came to shut down the investigation into Mega.”
“That’s nonsense! Where did you get that?”
“Didn’t you ever read the Starr report? Monica Lewinsky testified that President Clinton told her that a ‘foreign embassy’ was taping their calls!” He looked for recognition. “Shit, Joe! Who do you think she was referring to? And right after that the Mega investigation was closed down!”
“So what are you saying?”
“Just that there is someone in the highest levels of the United States government who has Israel’s interests ahead of ours. Do I need to recite for you the Jews who have held high positions in the government in the last eight years?”
A chill descended into the room. Sami had crossed the line and everyone knew it.
“So. That’s it,” Kinkaid said.
“No, that’s not it. I am not anti-Semitic. But if you were looking for someone sympathetic to Israel, do you think you might be more likely to find such a person among the Jews? Have you never heard of their Sayan network around the world? Jews who are citizens of other countries that just ‘help out’ the Mossad when asked?” Sami suddenly remembered what Efraim had said. “And what is this about a young Turk? Information has been withheld from me, a member of the task force because I am Arabic?”
“He had concerns—”
“So you did what he asked and went behind the back of one of your own officers?” Sami yelled.
“I put him on the speakerphone and let him say it to your face without his knowing it.” Kinkaid said, trying to control his anger. He knew he had let Sami go way too far, and in the wrong setting. He couldn’t have handled it much worse. Now it was poisonous. “I didn’t keep anything from you. You’re out of line, and you’re injecting issues where there aren’t any. I want to get this agent on the ground to laser for our pilots. The request came from us! Our pilots want the help, and I’m going to try to get it for them. And I’m telling you and everybody else here exactly what I’m doing. So you had better keep doing what you’re doing and cool it about intrigue and espionage. We’ve got a job to do here, clear?”
“Yeah, it’s clear. But Mega is still in our government. And this whole thing may have been schemed by Israel.”
“So back to that. They murdered their own people to set us up?”
Sami shook his head. “How do you know who the other dead people were on that bus, Joe? You can’t even see the woman’s face in the photos of her in the bus. And you can’t see her hand! Did you even notice that? We have no idea who she was!”
Kinkaid took a deep breath. “That’s not what happened.” He scanned the faces of the task force members. Several were clearly looking at him in a completely different way than they ever had before. Sami had damaged him. “Enough speculation. What we do know is where the Sheikh is. We need to help the Navy get him. Everybody agree with that?”
They nodded.
“Then don’t get sidetracked with corrosive speculation about ridiculous theories.” He stole a hard look at Sami. “And if anybody has a problem with me, or how this is going, come see me.” Kinkaid left the room.
The rest of the task force stood silently, looking at one another. Cunningham broke the silence. “This Mega thing for real?”
Sami nodded.
“Who do you think it is, or was?”
Sami didn’t know how to answer. He stared at the door that Kinkaid had just walked through. “Nothing says Mega isn’t inside the Agency.”
Bark stormed into the ready room. The junior officers in the ready room wanted only one thing — for him not to be looking for them. “Trey!” Bark yelled as he quickly and expertly scanned the room for his target. He saw him in the back preparing the next day’s flight schedule. He strode to the back of the room, his steel-toed boots loud on the tile, not waiting until he was closer before beginning the conversation. “What the hell are you doing?”
Woods waited for some additional information that would help him learn how he had screwed up this time. “What do you mean?” he asked defensively.
“You asked the Gunner to submit an emergency weapons request?”
“No, sir, he offered to contact Eglin, Skipper. He said he knew the guy in charge of the Air Force ordnance.”
“Shit, Trey! You’ve got to make requests through official channels! And that’s after you’ve talked to me about it. You continue to make me look like dog shit in front of CAG. I’ll probably get a Fitrep that says ‘Marginally competent. Unable to control the lunatic officers in his squadron!’ I heard about this from CAG! You know how that makes me feel? Do you?”
“Well—”
“Exactly. Tongue-tied. Like some little shit-for-brains who walks around apologizing for things all the time. I don’t like apologizing for anything, Trey! You got that? I don’t like there being anything that needs apologizing for! These days seems I’m always apologizing for you! You want to explain all this to me before I put your sorry ass in HAQ again?”