“You know your history.”
“Knowledge is a good thing. Especially here.”
“Alfred, this is not some intellectual exercise, I’m trying to fundamentally change American foreign policy. Daniels and I have fought over this. Now I can do something about it. It’s time we show the Arabs the same consideration we’ve always given Israel. And like you with the hired help, I, too, am only interested in results. You and your cohorts want to profit. I want to be in charge.”
“And we want you to have the job.”
“Then tell me, Alfred. When does the president of the United States die?”
Spindly fingers tickled Thorvaldsen’s crooked spine as the vice president’s words sank in.
“You seem to be warming to the idea,” Hermann said.
“You’ve convinced me.”
“And it’s arranged,” Hermann said. “Daniels’s unannounced trip to Kabul will come to a spectacular end.”
“Once he’s in the air,” the vice president said, “I’ll have everything confirmed through the means we discussed. As of now, he leaves next Thursday. Only four people know. Him, me, and our chiefs of staff. Even the Afghan president doesn’t know he’s coming. He’ll be told right before they land. The whole thing is a PR stunt by the White House communications people. Prop up the poll numbers with a rousing trip to the troops.”
“The missiles are already there,” Hermann said. “The deal was made with one of bin Laden’s main deputies. He was most appreciative. This will be their first significant strike at America in several years. We’ve dealt with these devils before, always at arm’s length and with caution, but successfully.”
“I still have my concerns. Arabs killing Daniels. But my friends in Arabia tell me most of them are sick of bin Laden, too. They’d love to take him out. His antics make changing world opinion infinitely more difficult. They just can’t link up with us so long as it’s ”Israel’s way or no way.“ But with Daniels gone and a change in policy made clear, they’ll join with us in getting bin Laden.”
“My Political Committee thinks the Arabs will be more than negotiable.”
“They know about this?” the vice president asked, surprise in his voice.
“Of course not. They simply explore scenarios-with a change in American foreign policy being one. We’ve long wanted that to happen.”
“Now, Alfred, you know what’s on my mind?”
Hermann chuckled. “There’s no trail. The emissaries used to negotiate the deal with bin Laden will be sent to Allah next week. That associate you mentioned will handle the matter personally. Nothing will link anybody.”
“Lot of trust you place in that man,” the vice president said.
“He’s never disappointed us.”
“It’s imperative he doesn’t start now. I’ll be in Chicago the day Daniels leaves. The White House announces nothing. It’s like the president is in Washington, working, and the next thing you know he’s on the news in Afghanistan. Then they hide me until he gets back. Standard post-9/11 procedure.”
“What will you do after the plane is brought down?” Hermann asked.
“Take the oath and govern for the next three years. Then I’ll run, get four more, and walk away.”
“I want you to understand that if we are successful in locating the lost library, then what we have planned will immediately start.”
“Damn right. Sooner the better. I need Israel and the Arabs kept off base. I’ll stroke them-you’ll smack them. The Saudis will have to deal. They can’t afford for their country to implode. And I want oil prices down just as badly as you do. A few dollars a barrel changes our GNP by billions. I’ll be mobilizing America to retaliate for Daniels’s death. No one will fight me on that one. The whole world will join us. The Arabs will be dangling, begging for friends. That’s when they’ll climb aboard and we all win.”
“My Political Committee believes there could be widespread destabilization.”
“Who cares? My poll numbers will be through the roof. Nothing energizes Americans more than a rally around the flag. And I plan to lead one for the next seven years. Arabs are dealers. They’ll see that the time for cooperation has come, especially if it hurts Israel.”
“You seem to have thought this through.”
“I’ve thought of little else the past few months. I’ve tried to get Daniels to shift, but he won’t bend when it comes to Israel. That damn nation the size of some American counties will be the ruin of all of us. And I don’t plan to let that happen.”
“The next time we meet,” Hermann said, “you’ll be president of the United States.”
“Alfred, besides the terrorists who’ll actually do it, you and I are the only two people on this planet that know what’s coming. I made sure of that.”
“As have I.”
“So let’s make it happen and both enjoy the reward.”
SIXTY-THREE
HERMANN TRIED TO GAUGE THE MAN SITTING ACROSS FROM him. He was indeed the vice president of the United States, but he was no different from the myriad of other politicos he’d bought and sold from around the world, men and women eager for power and lacking in conscience. The Americans liked to portray themselves as above that type of reproach, but ambition was irresistible to anyone who’d tasted its potential. The man here, in his library, on the night of the winter Assembly, was no exception. He talked of lofty political goals and shifts in foreign policy, but he’d been willing from the start to betray his country, his president, and himself.
Thank heaven.
The Order of the Golden Fleece thrived off the moral deficiencies of others.
“Alfred,” the vice president was saying. “Level with me. Is it really possible there’s evidence Israel has no biblical claim to the Holy Land?”
“Of course. The Old Testament was a major source of study at the Library of Alexandria. The emerging New Testament, toward the end of the library’s existence, also was analyzed in detail. We know that from surviving manuscripts. It’s reasonable to assume that both texts and analyses of the Bible, in its original Old Hebrew, still exist.”
He recalled what Sabre had reported from Rothenburg. Three others had been killed by Israel. Each visited by a Guardian. Each involved in Old Testament study. Haddad himself had received an invitation. Why else had he been extended such an honor? And why had Israel moved to kill the Palestinian?
There had to be a link.
“I was in England recently,” the vice president said, “and was shown the Sinai Bible. They told me it was from the fourth century, one of the earliest Old Testaments still around. Written in Greek.”
“There’s a perfect example,” he said. “Do you know the story?”
“Bits and pieces.”
Hermann told his guest about a German scholar, Tischendorf, who in 1844 was touring the East in search of old manuscripts. He visited the monastery of St. Catherine, in the Sinai, and noticed a basket filled with forty-three old pages written in ancient Greek. The monks told him they were to be burned for fuel, as others had been. Tischendorf determined that the pages were from the Bible, and the monks allowed him to keep them. Fifteen years later he returned to St. Catherine’s on behalf of the Russian tsar. He was shown the remainder of the biblical pages and managed to return them to Russia. Eventually, after the revolution, the communists sold the manuscript to the British, who display it to this day.
“The Sinai Bible,” Hermann said, “is one of the earliest surviving manuscripts. Some have speculated Constantine himself commissioned its preparation. But remember, it’s written in Greek, so it was translated from Hebrew by someone utterly unknown to us, from an original manuscript that is equally unknown. So what does it really tell us?”
“That the monks at St. Catherine’s are still ticked off, more than a hundred years later, that their Bible was never returned. For decades they’ve petitioned the United States to intervene with the British. That’s why I went to see the thing. I wanted to know what all the fuss was about.”