“What’s the point?”
“If it is to further their interests, they’ll sell out the U.S. so fast it will make your head spin.”
“Why do you care so much?”
Sami stared at his boss and leaned against the closed door. He stood there silently. “Back to that, huh? The young Turk.”
“Haddad. That’s your last name. Any relationship to Ali-Haddad? The most radical group of the PLO in the ‘80s?”
Sami’s mouth dropped. “What kind of question is that?”
“Just showing you how faulty apparently logical thinking can be.”
“I can’t believe you even said that.” Sami sank into the chair in the corner of Kinkaid’s office. “I’ve spent my entire time here studying Arab terrorists. Trying to anticipate them, to defeat them. And now you accuse me of being one of them?”
“I’m not accussing you of anything. I’m just showing you how you can go off track with seemingly straight thinking.” Kinkaid became reflective. “It goes back to Henry Kissinger.”
Sami looked at him with deep confusion. “What does?”
Kinkaid sighed and closed his eyes. “America made a deal with the devil. The Red Prince. The most effective PLO terrorist ever.”
Sami’s face reddened. “Ali Hassan Salameh.”
“You know of him,” Kinkaid said, surprised.
“Also known as Abu Hassan. Of course I do. He married Georgina Rizak, the Lebanese Miss Universe.”
Kinkaid smiled. “I’m impressed. He had targeted the U.S. We got wind of it. Based on Kissinger’s instructions, we talked to him.”
“How could we talk to him?” Sami asked, amazed. “He was the mastermind behind the ’72 Olympic attack!”
“We made a deal. We agreed not to pursue him if he would leave American citizens and property alone. He agreed. Not only did he agree, he became one of our best sources. Not about the PLO, but anybody else was fair game.” He paused and waited for Sami to look at him. “We knew where he was. Often. But we never told the Mossad. And he was number one on their hit list for years, until 1976 when they got him without our help.”
Sami was shocked. America had made a deal with the most cold-blooded killer he had studied. He had never known. “That is dealing with the devil.”
“We did what was in our interests. Just like we’re supposed to.”
Sami wanted to say something else. There was so much to say, so much to think through. “But that’s where you met Efraim, at Munich. Chasing the Red Prince.”
“Yes.” He could see the light going on in Sami’s head.
“And the whole time, you knew who it was and where he was and had made a deal with him.”
“He came to this very building. Often. Came up the elevator, just like you do. Had coffee with the Director.”
“Impossible!”
“Not impossible.”
“And the whole time, Efraim was trying to find him? To kill him?”
“Yep.”
“And you never told him.”
“No, I didn’t. He must know it now. Kissinger published it in his memoirs.”
“Maybe now it’s payback time.”
“I don’t think so,” Kinkaid said, obviously having already thought of that. “I wanted you to know that I know what I’m doing. I know everything you know about Israel and a lot more. And I know a lot more about what we have done, and haven’t done.”
Sami relaxed noticeably. “It’s not pretty, is it, this intelligence stuff.”
“Sometimes it’s beautiful. And other times, it’s very ugly indeed.”
“I just don’t want our pilots to fly into a trap.”
“Neither do I,” Kinkaid said. “You need to know that I take all that, and more, into account. It’s all a matter of judgment. It’s why my hair is getting gray. Your job right now is to determine whether the Sheikh has another place. Somewhere he might flee to before we get him. We have to anticipate.”
“Sure,” Sami said. “I don’t think there is any other place, but I’ll give it some thought.” He turned to go, and stopped. He looked back at Kinkaid. “I misjudged you. I’m sorry.”
“There’s one other thing you should know.”
“What?”
“Pollard wasn’t recruited by the Mossad.”
“Right,” Sami said, unbelieving. “It was LAKAS or something like that.”
“LAKAM,” Kinkaid corrected him. “Lishka le Kishrei Mada. The Hebrew acronym for the Israeli Defense Ministry’s Scientific Affairs Liaison Bureau.”
“And the Mossad had nothing to do with it.”
“Actually they didn’t,” Kinkaid said, smiling.
“You buy that?”
“Yes.”
“Whatever,” Sami said, unconvinced again.
“But remember when we confronted Israel about Pollard they protested that the Mossad never spies in the U.S.?”
“Yeah.”
“They do.”
“The Mossad?”
“Al. Hebrew for ‘above.’ A secret group within the Mossad unknown to even the vast majority of the Mossad. They operate in New York, Washington, D.C., wherever they want. Active spying.”
“You’re kidding me?”
“No.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you are right. You can’t believe anything they tell you.”
“And?”
“And our objective isn’t to believe them, it is to line up things so their interests are the same as ours. Then when they act in their interests it is to our benefit. So let me do that and quit trying to out-think me.”
Sami was reeling. “I had no idea.”
“Exactly. But I like your tenacity. I like your hunger for the truth. Just give the rest of the people in your family the benefit of the doubt until you have a really good reason not to. It’s the only way you’ll survive in this business.”
36
The Gunner stood on the flight deck in his khaki pants, red Jolly Rogers ordnance shirt, and red flotation vest. He had his goggles on and his helmet was strapped tightly under his chin. He took being on the flight deck very seriously. He had seen too many people killed, friends who had walked into turning props, been sucked into jet intakes, cut in half by a broken arresting gear cable, or simply blown over the side by invisible jet exhaust, never to be seen again. Most of it had happened at night, when there wasn’t any moon, like tonight.
But the Gunner was so excited about the ugly plane that was taxiing to a stop in front of him he could be forgiven for paying just slightly less attention to the constant dangers. He was surrounded by his ordnancemen who were as excited about the COD in front of them as he was. A new weapon to an ordnancemen was like Christmas to a young child.
Gunner Ruben Bailey’s division wanted to be there to see the COD and its cargo, but he had kept the number of men down — limited to those he needed to move and load the cargo.
The Gunner and the red-shirted ordnancemen stood just forward of the island. The COD, the last airplane of the recovery, stopped directly in front of the island.
The plane captain hurried to the wheels and put the chocks in place to keep the aircraft from rolling, then grabbed the tie-down points and secured the plane to the deck with heavy, steel chains. She hurried back out to where the pilot could see her and gave him a thumbs-up, then brought her hand across her throat while pointing at the number-two engine, telling him to shut it down. The turboprop engine shuddered quickly to a stop and she gave the signal to shut down the other one.
The Gunner and the rest of the ordies moved around to the back of the COD. The ramp came down slowly, finally touching the deck. The Gunner and his men hurried into the belly of the plane, where two GBU-28s were exposed for all to see — ready to go, an all up round, as they called it, assembled by the Navy ordnancemen on the Naval Air Base at Sigonella, Sicily.