Still in jogging shorts and a T-shirt soaked with sweat, Bennett wiped his face with a towel and flipped on the news. FOX had a feed from Russian television, and the images were gruesome, particularly the shots of Gogolov’s bullet-ridden limousine and the smoking wreckage of burned cars nearby.
“Where’s Rajiv?”
“I paged her right after you. She’s on her—”
Rajiv burst through the door. “Sorry I’m late. What’ve we got?”
“A disaster,” said Bennett. “He survived.”
The phone rang.
“Bennett… yes?… Fine, just let me know. I’ll be ready.”
He hung up the phone and slumped down in his chair.
“Who was that?” asked Rajiv.
“Corsetti. The president wants to see me in a few minutes.”
“What are you going to tell him?”
“I don’t know. I was hoping I had some more time.”
“And a shower?” asked Costello.
Bennett just sighed. “Yeah, that would have been nice. All right, where are we? You guys read the thing from Mordechai?”
Costello and Rajiv nodded.
“Well?”
“Well what?” asked Rajiv. “You’re not seriously going to take that thing to the Oval Office, are you?”
“Why not?”
“What are you, nuts? The president needs options, Jon, not a bunch of hocus-pocus.”
Bennett could see the cynicism in Rajiv’s eyes. He wanted to be angry, but could he really blame her? He was still wrestling it through for himself. Why shouldn’t she? She’d had less time to process it, and she didn’t share his faith. She didn’t see the world the way he did. Her grandparents had been Hindus, killed in Kashmir by radical Islamic jihadists from Pakistan. It’s why her parents had fled India for the United States in the first place. And why she’d immersed herself in understanding the major religious movements of North Africa, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent.
Indira Rajiv prided herself on not being religious, on not being swayed by mystical or spiritual beliefs of any kind. And maybe she was right. Had his grief over McCoy clouded his judgment? In Jerusalem, Mordechai’s case had sounded so compelling. In the West Wing, it suddenly reeked of lunacy.
“What about you, Ken?”
Bennett braced for Costello to pile on.
“You sure you want my opinion, Jon?”
“Of course I do.”
“Well, it seems pretty cut-and-dried to me. Dr. Mordechai was head of the Mossad. He’s known the president for years. The president sent you over there to get the man’s take. Seems to me you’ve got to give it to him. Besides, you’ve got to admit, it’s a pretty interesting theory.”
Indira Rajiv couldn’t contain herself. “What? You’re both out of your minds. Why don’t you just hand the president a copy of the National Enquirer and tell him Gogolov is the Antichrist, while you’re at it.”
Costello just laughed. “Raj, come on, don’t be ridiculous.”
“No, I’m perfectly serious. What’s the difference?”
“A lot, actually, but that’s not the point.”
“Then what is?” Rajiv demanded.
“Look, don’t get me wrong,” said Costello. “I’m a lapsed Catholic. I haven’t gone to church in ten years, maybe more. So I don’t have a stake in this thing theologically. But you’ve got to admit it’s pretty amazing to think that some guy writing twenty-five hundred years ago could nail this crisis so closely. I mean, look at page six of Mordechai’s brief. Look at the countries listed in this anti-Israel coalition. Besides Russia and Germany, it’s practically the who’s who of the radical Islamic world, right?”
Bennett flipped open his copy as he and Rajiv scanned the names and nodded.
“Doesn’t it strike you as strange that two longtime mortal enemies of Israel are missing from the list?” Costello asked.
Both looked at the list again. Both drew a blank.
“Egypt? Babylon? Hello?” Costello said finally. “Think about it. If any group of countries was about to attack Israel, historically speaking you’d have to expect Egypt and Iraq to be at the front of the line, right? But they’re not. The question is, why? The Egyptians and the Iraqis were part of the 1948 war against Israel. And the ’67 war. And the ’73 war. But then what happened? The Egyptians signed a peace treaty with Israel in ’79. And then we brought about our little ‘regime change’ in Iraq. Which means that for the first time since the rebirth of the State of Israel — i.e., the fulfillment of Ezekiel 36 and 37—the Egyptians and the Iraqis are not in the mix. I’m not saying it proves anything. But you’ve got to admit, it’s interesting.”
It was. Bennett was impressed that Costello had taken Mordechai’s case so seriously.
“You’re saying that if it were up to you — with everything going on right now, and everything on the president’s mind and plate — you’d give him the brief?”
“Of course,” said Costello.
“And if the president asked you why he should ever listen to Mordechai again, what would you say?”
“Well, that’s a different question.”
It certainly was.
The phone rang again.
“Bennett… yes, sir… I’ll be right there.”
He was out of time. The president was waiting.
42
“Jon, tell me this wasn’t the Israelis.”
No hello. No good morning. No how dare you enter this office without a suit and tie. The president was all business, and Bennett had rarely seen him so angry.
“I can only hope it was,” said Bennett. “Unless it was us. Tell me that’s why the Secret Service calls you Gambit.”
“It wasn’t us, Jon. And you’d better pray it wasn’t the Mossad.”
“I’m praying just the opposite.”
“Then you’re about to get a whole lot of people killed,” the president shot back. “Look, Jon, I know this thing is personal for you, and Lord knows I’m praying for Erin’s safe return. But you don’t seem to get it, do you? If Doron or I order the assassination of Yuri Gogolov, what exactly do we gain? What assurances would we have that Andrei Zyuganov or some other madman won’t take over and decide to retaliate with ten thousand nuclear warheads? Or maybe with just one. Have you seen the DOD estimates of death tolls from one Russian ICBM hitting New York or L.A.?”
Bennett shook his head.
“You should. And while you’re at it, take a look at the computer model for a U.S. preemptive strike against Moscow and what that triggers — a hundred million Americans dead in the first few hours, another seventy-five million dead in the next few weeks. I’m not about to play Russian roulette with a bunch of nuclear-armed psychopaths.”
Bennett asked if the president had read his report on his meeting with Doron.
“I have,” said MacPherson.
“Then you know Doron is seriously considering The Samson Option.”
“It’s a mistake.”
“Nevertheless…”
“Jon, look, I’ll do everything I possibly can to help make this turn out right. But you’ve got to understand we simply do not have a realistic military option right now.”
“Mr. President, it doesn’t need to come to war,” Bennett countered. “Gogolov is a bully. No one’s ever said no to him. Why not you? Veto his resolution in the Security Council. Build a coalition to fight him in the General Assembly. Park some warships off the Israeli coast. And sell the Israelis the weapons they need to defend themselves.”