“I just happened to be in the neighborhood, so I thought I would drop by. May I put my hands down now?”
“Of course, sorry,” said Bennett, starting to breathe again. He set the Beretta on the desk. “How long have you been here?”
“Not long, but I am afraid I do not have time for small talk, Jonathan. I had some meetings at the CIA today. I head to Brussels on the first flight out. But where are my manners? It is good to see you again.”
He stood and smiled and gave Bennett a hug — sensitive to Bennett’s injuries and careful not to squeeze too hard — and then the two sat down. Bennett wiped his hands on his slacks. He’d been on edge for weeks. Yet there was something about this old man that put him at peace.
Mordechai was an acquired taste, of course. Who but a retired Israeli spymaster could consider it “small talk” to explain why and how he’d broken into the house of a senior White House official guarded twenty-four hours a day by trained professionals? But he was here now, and Bennett had a thousand questions.
Mordechai beat him to the punch.
“So, what’s the latest with Erin?”
It had to be the twentieth time Bennett had been asked since breakfast. But this time he didn’t feel annoyed. Bennett told him all he knew, which wasn’t much.
“I still have a few sources in the old country,” Mordechai offered. “Let me see what we can come up with. In the meantime, I will keep praying. The Lord knows exactly where she is. We just need Him to tell us.”
Yeah, right, thought Bennett, but he kept quiet. This was not a conversation he wanted to have right now. He didn’t know why exactly. It just wasn’t. He wasn’t looking for a miracle to rescue the woman he loved. A CIA extraction team or the 82nd Airborne would do fine, followed by a cruise missile down Gogolov’s throat.
The phone rang again.
“You should answer that, Jonathan,” said Mordechai. “It could be important.”
“Let them leave a message,” said Bennett. “I’m not in the mood.”
“What if it is about Erin?”
Bennett shot Mordechai a quizzical look, then grabbed the phone and stepped out of the room. He instantly recognized the voice on the line. You’ve got to be kidding me, he thought.
“Mom? What’s the matter? For crying out loud, it’s almost midnight.”
Ten minutes later Bennett was back.
“Everything all right?” Mordechai asked with a gentle, understated concern that reminded Bennett of his late grandfather.
“I don’t know,” said Bennett, running his hands through his hair and sitting down in the overstuffed chair across from Mordechai. “Ever since my dad passed away and I took this job with the White House, my mom’s just been, I don’t know — not herself.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it’s almost midnight and she just called — to say hi? No. To get an update on Erin? Not exactly. Don’t get me wrong. She loves Erin like a daughter, but…”
“But what? What did she want?”
Bennett hesitated. “You’re not going to believe me.”
“Try me,” said Mordechai.
“She wants to know if Yuri Gogolov is the Antichrist.”
He expected the old man to laugh out loud. Instead, Mordechai asked, “Why does she want to know?”
“Good grief,” said Bennett. “Don’t get me started on my mother. I love her to death, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes…”
Bennett stopped and seemed to drift off for a moment.
Mordechai repeated his question. “Why does your mother think Gogolov might be the Antichrist?”
Bennett slumped back in one of his office chairs and sighed.
“She was getting her hair done today, and her hairdresser said something about a story she’d read in the National Enquirer about how all these prophetic signs are converging — the discovery of oil in the Holy Land, the Iraqis moving their capital to Babylon, wars and rumors of wars in the Middle East. You name it, the UFO people are worked up about it.”
“So why did she call you at midnight about it?”
“She can’t sleep. I don’t know what’s going on. She’s never wanted to talk about anything spiritual. She won’t come to church with Erin and me when she comes up to visit. She’s convinced a bunch of ‘religious fundamentalists’ have taken over the government. But now she wants to know if Yuri Gogolov is the Antichrist. Go figure.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I told her to take a Valium and go back to bed.”
“That’s it?”
“No, no, of course not. I told her not to worry. Yuri Gogolov is evil personified, but he isn’t the Antichrist.”
“Did that satisfy her?”
“Hardly. She wants me to talk to some experts and get back to her with a definitive answer. Got one?”
27
It wasn’t hard to pick up.
The moment the conversation had turned spiritual, Bennett’s discomfort had become palpable, and Mordechai worried about his young friend.
The man had almost lost his own life, and it wasn’t the first time. The woman he loved was probably dead. He was in constant physical pain. The pressures of serving as a senior aide to the president in the current political environment put him under almost inhuman levels of stress. From what Mordechai heard, Bennett refused to see any of the counselors on staff with the CIA or State Department. And on top of it all, Mordechai was reluctantly coming to the conclusion that this young man’s faith was faltering.
He didn’t blame Bennett. On the contrary, he felt compassion for him.
In some ways, Bennett was at the top of his game. In others, he was enduring traumas few outside the military or intelligence world could fathom. He was not fully cognizant of the times in which he lived or the supernatural power that was his for the asking. And he was running on empty.
“You seem distracted, Jonathan,” he said finally, hoping Bennett would confide in him as he had over the years.
Instead, Bennett turned the conversation back toward Gogolov. “What do you think he wants,” Bennett asked bluntly, “and how can we take him down?”
Mordechai was disappointed, but he would not press too hard. “Doron is asking the same question. I am not entirely sure I have an answer for either of you yet. But I am working on it.”
“I’ll take whatever you’ve got so far,” said Bennett.
Mordechai lit up his beloved pipe and leaned back in the leather chair. “Remember when I called you from Babylon? You were on the way to meet with Vadim.”
“Of course. You warned me there might be a coup. I thought you were crazy.”
“I am sorry I could not warn you sooner.”
“How did you know?”
“I did not know for certain — not that it was imminent, anyway. But the files Al-Hassani gave me were a treasure trove. Truly unbelievable. I—”
Mordechai suddenly stopped in midsentence.
“What is it?”
“Jonathan, there is something I must ask you first,” said Mordechai. “Why did you send me to Iraq?”
Bennett seemed surprised by the question. “President Al-Hassani told Erin and me that he wanted to meet with an Israeli, someone in intelligence — former intelligence, actually.”
“Someone close to Doron, but deniable if the press caught wind of it?” Mordechai asked.
“That’s my guess. Erin and I were in Iraq at the beginning of June. We had a private audience with Al-Hassani. President MacPherson wanted us to poke around the Arab world and see if there was anyone who might be willing to publicly back the Oil-for-Peace deal once we got it all nailed down.”