How many nights had she lain awake begging God for his safety as he’d slipped in and out of this republic of fear, buying sources, running agents, playing his deadly games? Why had she put up with any of it? Why had he made her?
It was no life for a woman of her talent and beauty — long, endless nights of loneliness and the dread that he might never come home. She had deserved so much more, and the regret he now felt for not giving it to her stabbed at his heart.
They had been together for nearly fifty years, and still she was a mystery. They had not been blessed with children or, for most of their lives, any measure of wealth — that had come more recently and, sadly, only after her death. For five decades they had had only each other, and the years had fused them together until she finished his sentences and he finished her soup. If only she had lived long enough to see the changes God had brought about in his life.
At the beginning of their courtship, they’d had nothing in common but their love for each other. He was an only child, born in Tobolsk, Siberia, on May 28, 1930. She was born in Haifa, Israel, on August 9, 1939.
Her grandparents had escaped Baghdad in 1923, made their way to Istanbul and then to Damascus, and eventually had passed through Beirut before making their way into Palestine in the long, hard winter of 1931. His family had escaped from the Soviet Union in the spring of 1941 through central Asia, Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq, before finally arriving in Palestine in the fall of 1945.
Hers had been a merchant family, opening grocery stores in northern Israel and the Galilee during the British Mandate. His had been a family of intellectuals.
Though his father, Vladimir, had been a highly educated man and an aspiring rabbi and had suffered terrible persecution in Tobolsk, he had eagerly fought in Israel’s War of Independence in 1948 before becoming a professor of Russian studies at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University. Mordechai’s mother, Miriam, earned two degrees from Hebrew University and taught nursing to young women drafted into the Israeli Defense Forces.
And then one day while Mordechai was away at IDF boot camp, his parents were killed during a terrorist bombing of a Jerusalem restaurant. In one cruel moment in time, all that he had was ripped away from him forever. He was an orphan. He was alone — without a family, without hope, without an anchor for his soul. Yet when he closed his eyes, even all these years later, he still found it hard to be angry. What man had meant for evil, God had used for good.
For across the street from the bombed-out restaurant was a grocery store. It was owned by a man with seven sons and five daughters, and one of those daughters was named Yael. Mordechai could still picture her face the first time he laid eyes on her, as she came over to help sweep up the charred debris. He could still see her turning her head and catching his eye as he stood in the burned-out doorway, tears streaming down his face. And he could still remember that still, soft voice as she introduced herself, apologized for his loss, and held his hand as he wept.
She had been only fourteen, but in that instant, somewhere deep inside of him, he knew they were destined to be married, and for a split second he began to suspect that perhaps God was not capricious and cruel. Perhaps God was more tender than Mordechai knew, taking one family away but giving him another. It was an instinct that would eventually prove to be true, the first of many such instincts that would be borne out over time.
And suddenly he was overcome by a longing to finish this race, to see his precious Yael once again and fall into her arms and hold her for eternity.
“Dr. Mordechai?”
The hushed voice of a female military aide startled him.
“Yes — sorry — what is it?”
“Just wanted you to know we’ll be landing in about fifteen minutes,” she whispered in Hebrew.
“Thank you,” said Mordechai, wiping his eyes and trying to gather his thoughts.
“Can I bring you something before we touch down?”
“Yes, thank you, that would be very kind. Do you have any hot tea?”
“Of course.”
“And a little sweetener, if that is not too much trouble.”
“No trouble at all, sir.”
Mordechai thanked the young woman again, and she headed back to the galley. He choked back his emotions and tried to refocus on the task at hand.
Again he glanced at his watch. They had just entered Iraqi airspace. They were in. It seemed hard to believe to an old warrior like Mordechai.
It had taken longer and cost more in blood and treasure than anyone had expected, but incredibly, Iraq was now free. What’s more — sitting atop some of the largest oil reserves in the world and no longer held hostage to the demands of the insatiable dictator Saddam Hussein — she was poised to become a global economic superpower.
The White House could barely contain its optimism. A peaceful, prosperous, democratic Iraq — combined with a historic final status agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians — would forever transform the modern Middle East, the American president and his top advisors believed.
But Mordechai had his doubts. Iraq, in his judgment, was the last place democratic capitalism was likely to flourish. Something evil lived under these sands, and every molecule in his body sensed that the evil here was regrouping, preparing to strike.
How soon? He couldn’t say. Was it possible Iraq would be tranquil for a season? Perhaps, he conceded. But it could never last. Anyone who thought it could, even a man of President MacPherson’s stature and experience, was fooling himself.
Still, Mordechai reminded himself, that was all a headache for another day. For now, he — a Jew from Siberia — was about to witness the heart of darkness up close and personal for himself. But why? How?
He had been director of the Israeli Mossad’s Arab Desk from 1976 to 1984. He had personally planned the bombing of Iraq’s Osirik nuclear reactor. He had gone on to serve as director of the Mossad’s Nuclear Desk from 1985 to 1987, and as full director of the Mossad from 1988 to 1996. He had been a senior advisor to every Israeli prime minister since Golda Meir, and — despite his misgivings — he had spent the last several years informally advising the White House on its latest Middle East peace initiative.
How could Mustafa Al-Hassani allow such a man into his country, much less into his own palace? Had Iraq really changed that much?
6
Russians awoke Wednesday to wall-to-wall coverage.
The downing of Aeroflot 6617 dominated not just the front pages of every major newspaper in Russia but hours of special coverage on Russia’s radio and TV networks.
News of Boris Stuchenko’s death caused the Russian stock market to plunge more than 12 percent at the opening bell. Markets in Asia and Europe moved down sharply, as did the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. Oil prices — down sharply over the past year with Israeli and Palestinian reserves flooding the market and the prospect of Iraqi oil coming fully on line — suddenly reversed course, jumping almost four dollars overnight to $24.23 a barrel, a new twelve-month high.
But it was the deaths of the children aboard the Aeroflot jet that lit Russia’s emotional fuse, much as it had after the school massacre in Beslan in September of 2004. Except that then they had blamed the Chechen radicals for the attack and then-president Putin for botching the rescue. Now they blamed the president of the United States, and emotions were raw.