“Well. I wanted to talk about the strikes.”
“You and I have never failed to get someone we went after, have we?”
“We have had some success.”
“I don’t think we’ve ever failed, have we?”
“Just once. Cypress.”
“I’d forgotten. Did he ever surface?”
“Never. We think they might have killed him just so we would always think he was out there.”
“Well, that would be just as good then. Other than him, we’ve had success.”
“Yes. It pays to have friends on whom you can rely, Joseph.”
“The problem with great friendship in our business,” Kinkaid said, “is that the greater the trust, the greater the exposure to betrayal. Like a marriage.”
Efraim paused, considering what Kinkaid had said. He had thrown large pieces of ice into a conversation Efraim had tried to start warmly.
Efraim hesitated. “There is something you want to say to me.”
“This thing has come together in a very… curious way. I need to know about it. I need to know about the woman, Irit. What was she doing with the Navy Lieutenant?”
“Why?”
“It is what started all of this.”
“Started? How?” Efraim asked, puzzled.
“It was the Sheikh’s first move.”
“No, it wasn’t. Gaza was.”
“Okay, second move, but part of the plan. So who was she?”
“She was Israeli.”
“We know that. Who did she work for?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Why’s that? She must have been with the Mossad then, or you would say,” Kinkaid pointed out. “This whole thing is very real now. Not just intelligence people talking among themselves. We have declared war on this man, and we have attacked his strongholds in sovereign countries. Some of it is based on what you’ve told us, and you won’t tell me what may have started the whole thing? That strikes me as odd.”
Efraim waited.
“What was she doing in Italy?”
“She was on vacation.”
“Truly?” Kinkaid replied with doubt. He listened carefully to Efraim’s reply, which came after just the slightest hesitation.
“That is my understanding.”
“Let me be clear,” Kinkaid said. “Was she targeting an American Naval officer as a possible source of intelligence information?”
“Of course not, what a ridiculous thought. Joe, you have been watching too many Hollywood movies.”
“Really. Let’s talk about Jonathan Pollard.”
“An unfortunate incident. We had nothing to do with that. I was unaware of it until it was too late. We don’t spy in America.”
“Sure. What about how she met this Naval officer.”
“I don’t know much of their meeting.”
“It was on a train. Supposedly circumstantial.” Kinkaid tried to listen to the tones in Efraim’s voice. “I don’t believe in coincidences. Do you?”
“Yes, absolutely. A lack of belief in coincidences is the beginning of paranoia.”
“So convince me that her meeting him was a coincidence. Not only that they just happened to meet on the train, but she then lied to him about who she was.”
“Of course she did. She would not be free to talk about her position. Do you? When you go to a party and someone asks you what you do, do you say, immediately, I am in Director of Counter-Terrorism at the CIA? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“So you admit she was involved in intelligence and that’s why she didn’t tell him the truth?”
“I admit nothing of the kind.”
“It’s more than that, Efraim. She said she was Italian.”
“Just playing the game. Flirting. I’m sure.”
“Really. It has got a paranoid officer on my task force thinking. His theory is that she was sent to Italy — Naples, of all places, not exactly a prime Italian tourist destination — to make contact with an American Naval officer. The objective was to somehow entangle the United States more deeply in the Middle East. The most paranoid officer has a really odd theory. Like to hear it?”
“By all means,” Efraim said guardedly.
“She was sent to Italy to lure Tony Vialli — or someone like him — to Israel. Once there, he would be assassinated.”
“By whom?”
“Israel. The attack on the bus was done to look like an assault by the Sheikh you had been tracking. Such an act of terrorism would make the U.S. furious. You expected us to respond by going after him, which you were either unable or afraid to do. You wanted the United States to be at war with the Sheikh, or at least almost at war. You knew we would go into places that you either wouldn’t or couldn’t. You wanted us to fight your fight for you.”
“Afraid?” Efraim laughed humorlessly. “We’re not afraid to go anywhere. We’re the ones who bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactors while the world condemned us. We’re the ones who flew our F-15s to attack PLO camps in Tunisia by air refueling long-range. We are the ones who found the PLO number two and killed him in his home in Tunisia. We flew to Entebbe and attacked those who were holding hostage an airplane full of Jews. Afraid? That’s ridiculous.”
“So you deny it?” Kinkaid said, feeling awkward about pressing a theory he didn’t accept.
“It is ridiculous and offensive. And it is impossible.”
“How’s that?”
“Why would we kill our own citizens? And the Sheikh has publicly claimed responsibility for the attack.”
“I thought you might say that. In fact that was the very question I wondered about. But I’ve been thinking about it.”
“And what is your answer, Joseph?”
“I don’t have one. I don’t think you’d kill your own people, but there are a lot of things that still surprise me in the world. And the Sheikh? Lots of groups take responsibility for every terrorist attack, and any kind of document can be forged. If he hadn’t claimed responsibility, maybe we would have gotten some of that helpful intelligence from you telling us that you had figured it out, and he was the one responsible. I would have been very grateful to you, I’m sure.”
“So not only are we vicious, and murder our own innocent people, we’re stupid as well? We wear our own uniforms so nobody will think it’s us? And if it doesn’t work, we’ll just lie to you about it?”
“No, you wear your own uniforms so when asked you can say, ‘What do you think we are, stupid?’ “
“Yes. Well, I think we’ve gone as far as we can down this ridiculous road. It is simply untrue, and it’s outrageous. I can’t believe that you, of all people, have spent even one minute of your busy time thinking about such a story. You must listen to our thirty years of friendship.”
“So you deny it?”
“Yes. Absolutely I do. Her meeting of the Lieutenant was a coincidence. I assure you. I cannot explain why she claimed to be Italian. Maybe she thought if she told him she was Jewish he wouldn’t be interested. Young love. Who knows? But I assure you, there was nothing to do with us. Her work had nothing to do with recruiting an American for any reason at all. Her current job dealt more with a specialty she had, as an Arab linguist.”
“Why were they going to Tel Aviv?”
“She was interviewing for a position with El Al. Just as she told the Lieutenant.”
“She was getting out?”
“She had had enough. Since the accident.”
“Maybe you’re being deceived yourself.”
“It is not possible.”
Kinkaid cradled the phone receiver against his shoulder. He glanced at his Styrofoam coffee cup sitting on his desk. The cup was full and the coffee was stone cold. “You know about the missile.”
Efraim replied, “The Syrians.”
“Yes.”
“The missile was yours.”
“Exactly. The story Raytheon put out was bogus. Or at least partly bogus. They didn’t tell the full story.”