He had tried everything to avoid having the final decision rest on him. Was it all in vain? Was he going to have to make the call?
He had read Eli Mordechai’s brief cover to cover. “The Ezekiel Option.” He had been stunned. Was it possible his old Israeli friend — a man he respected deeply — was actually recommending that the president of the United States base his foreign policy on theology that MacPherson felt was at best dubious and at worst downright insane? How should he respond?
Should he veto the resolution, risking all-out war with Moscow, in the hope that Eli was right and God was going to intervene at the last moment? Impossible. But how could he abandon Israel to fend for herself against the rest of the world? Was there any chance that diplomatic measures could still bring a peaceful solution even if the resolution passed?
On the monitor, the Italian ambassador stood. “Italy votes aye.”
MacPherson knew he was running out of time. He had to make a decision.
The next one was no surprise.
Bennett listened as the Russian ambassador cast his ballot.
“The Russian Federation votes aye.”
The Turkish ambassador was next. “The Turkish people share a long and deep respect for the Jewish people and the State of Israel in particular,” he began, “and we stand second to none in support of any effort to bring peace to the Middle East. That said, however, we cannot allow a double standard to exist. We cannot allow the world to require Iraq, Libya, and now Iran to give up their weapons of mass destruction but give Israel a free pass. Therefore, while we hope for a peaceful resolution, nevertheless, the Republic of Turkey votes aye.”
Bennett was stunned.
And when the British ambassador voted “aye” as well, he felt as though the wind had been knocked out of him. Britain was the final blow. Only hours before, the British and Turkish prime ministers had each separately told MacPherson by phone that they would “do the right thing.” What had gone wrong? Had they been bought off? blackmailed?
The vote was now twelve to two, including nine nonpermanent members. Gogolov had all but won.
Only MacPherson could stop this war now.
Or — at the very least — delay it for several weeks.
But to do so required casting a veto that would isolate the White House and could tear an already fragile NATO alliance to shreds.
Either way, a global nuclear showdown was coming.
It was just a matter of time.
“And how does the United States of America vote?”
The moment of truth was at hand.
All eyes were now on the American ambassador.
MacPherson’s entire presidency was on the line. He had prayed for this cup to pass from him, but it had not. He had prayed for wisdom, but it had not seemed to come. He had begged the God of the universe to speak to him in his weakest hour, but the heavens seemed silent.
MacPherson looked down at the laptop screen before him, at the blinking cursor waiting for his instructions.
Slowly, he typed and sent over a secure server his one-word decree, then looked up at the TV screen to see the ambassador read the message on his BlackBerry.
He could see the ambassador flinch momentarily, then look up at a waiting Security Council and a billion viewers on the edge of their seats.
The American ambassador cleared his throat.
“Mr. Secretary-General, the United States chooses to… abstain.”
45
Nothing was going to stop this war now.
That much was clear. If there was one thing Ruth Bennett had learned from her years in Moscow, it was this: when the Kremlin decided to go to war, nothing was going to stand in its way. The only exception she’d ever seen was the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was one of the few times she had ever gone to church. And when Khrushchev had backed down, she had cried like a baby and wondered, for the first time in her life, if there really was a God in heaven.
She wanted to talk to Jon and get his thoughts on all that was happening. What’s more, she wanted him to tell her that it was all going to be OK, that there was a secret plan being cooked up in the White House to defuse this crisis the way Kennedy had done.
But what was the point? There was no way Jon was going to take her call. Not now. Not for weeks. By her count it had been more than two weeks since she had called Jon and asked him if Yuri Gogolov was the Antichrist. She knew he was busy. She knew he had the world on his shoulders and was agonizing over Erin. Maybe he thought it was a stupid request. And maybe it was. But it was important to her. The world was lurching to the brink of nuclear war, and she was scared. True, he had apologized when he’d sent all the roses. He’d promised — again — to get back to her soon. But that was two days ago, and still no word.
And then a bitter thought came to her mind. She had married a workaholic. Had she raised one as well? It was painful to think how much like his father Jon had turned out to be. Sol Bennett had been a man consumed by his job, convinced that finding “all the news that was fit to print” was some sort of divine calling under which all other things on heaven and earth had to be subordinated. Birthdays could be canceled, holidays missed, anniversaries forgotten, simple manners completely tossed out the window if, heaven forbid, news should break. Worse were the times when no one Sol was covering was making news. It was like living with a man in need of a heroin fix.
She’d played that game for almost forty-one years, and she’d resented it for nearly all that time. But she had never really thought about the effect an absentee father would have on Jon. Until now.
There was a restless, driven, frenetic quality about her son that unsettled her. He was, to put it mildly, a man in a hurry. He wanted to play the “big game.” He wanted to prove that he could win. On Wall Street. In the White House. On the world stage. He didn’t love money or fame or power per se, though he had attained them all at such a young age. Influence was what he craved. A sense of mission. A sense of destiny, of accomplishment that would prove his worth beyond a shadow of doubt.
Just like his father.
It was why Jon ran so hard, she had concluded. Why he almost never took vacations. Why he pushed himself and his team past the limits of normal human endurance. Because he wanted so much for his life to matter, because he wanted to be noticed, to be important.
But to whom was he trying to prove his worth? To a dead father who had rarely spent time with him and never would again?
Erin McCoy was the best thing that had ever happened to Jon. She, too, had a voracious drive to succeed, but it was different somehow. There was a warmth to Erin, a genuine kindness and love for people that too often seemed to elude Jon. What’s more, anyone who had seen those two together knew that Erin absolutely adored Jon. Head over heels didn’t even come close to capturing the passion and intensity of her love for him. And as someone once said, love covers a multitude of sins.
There was no question that Jon was a different person — a better person — since he’d found Erin and found God. Erin called him “the George Bush Jon,” and it was true, as far as it went. He was kinder and gentler than he’d been in college or at GSX. Except to her. “Mom” always seemed to be at the bottom of Jon’s to-do list. Maybe it was her own fault. After all, Naina Petrovsky had practically raised him when they lived in Moscow.
Maybe Ruth was just reaping what she’d sown.