“You’d better sit down,” the Mossad chief advised.
“I’m not really sick, remember? This is just a costume for the benefit of anyone who might be sneaking a peek.”
“That doesn’t mean you won’t be sick after I’m finished.”
The prime minister settled himself in a leather chair and Isser placed a cassette tape player on the table closest to him. He pushed the play button and spoke as he waited for the voices from Tehran to replace his. “This reached me from our team covering Hassani just hours ago. It speaks for itself.”
As if on cue, the voice of General Amir Hassani came on. He greeted the delegates seated around him, and Isser fast-forwarded to the spot where the discussion got interesting. The prime minister sat transfixed through it all, mouth dropping at the intent of the words. Near the end of General Hassani’s final speech, Isser switched it off.
“The ‘delegates’ were never named but I recognize their voices. I know them, don’t I, Isser?”
“Seven of our nation’s greatest enemies.”
“And they have come together to plan our destruction.”
Isser nodded. “Hassani has turned their fanaticism into ambition. Ambition makes a much more potent foe.”
The prime minister rose from his chair and paced nervously to the window, then started back. “My God, could this truly be?”
“You heard the tape, sir. We have no choice but to believe it can.”
“A mass invasion preceded by the employment of this … weapon. What weapon, Isser?”
“My men have no idea. You heard the tape. This was apparently the first mention even the delegates had heard of it.” Isser hesitated as if to catch his thoughts. “Hassani’s movements since he came to power have been strange. He disappears for days on end, weeks sometimes. We can only assume now that those disappearances are directly related to his unification of the militant Arab world and this mysterious superweapon he refers to.”
“A collection of madmen!”
“Poised along our very borders.”
“Any conventional attack we can put down, but obviously General Hassani has something more in store for us.”
“Most certainly,” Isser agreed. “And you are correct in limiting our problem to the general himself.”
The prime minister returned to his chair and sank into it, appearing to have been swallowed. “Go on.”
“The tape says their next meeting will be held on our Independence Day. Accordingly, I suggest we activate Operation Firestorm ahead of schedule.”
“The old bastards would never go for it.”
“Then we won’t give them a choice. We agreed to underwrite their bizarre plan on the condition that final control was left in our hands. I suggest we exercise it.”
“Easier said than done. The old men have planned everything to the minute. And you forget, my friend, that part of what attracted us to Operation Firestorm was the fact that traditional lines of communication were bypassed. The old men’s soldiers are divided into individual insurgent cells that will not connect with each other until the hour of Firestorm is upon us. Before that time, reaching them all to move up the timetable is not feasible.”
Isser wasn’t ready to give in yet. “I’ll pay Isaac another visit in Hertzelia. Maybe we can work something out.”
“You seem to get on quite well with the old war horse.” The prime minister chuckled, making fun of himself at the same time since he was not far from being a contemporary of Isaac’s.
Isser nodded. “I met with them last two days ago. Apparently their people alerted them to the next step Evira took after Ben-Neser’s failed attempt to take her in Jaffa Square.”
“Which was?”
“She went to Tehran to assassinate Hassani.”
“And the old men stopped her, no doubt. My God, they don’t miss anything when it comes to their mission. If they had left Evira alone, maybe Hassani wouldn’t have been around to chair that meeting we just heard. Ironic, isn’t it?”
“They stopped her, sir, but they didn’t kill her. She remains at large, although stripped of her contacts and probably on the run.”
The prime minister laughed again, only this time there was no trace of amusement. “Hah! Perhaps we should help her. Whatever threat we are facing begins and ends with Hassani. Eliminate him and … Achhhhh, what am I saying? We must look for other options anywhere we can find them.”
“One might be closer than we think.”
The prime minister leaned forward. “What are you talking about?”
“Back to Jaffa Square again. You read my report?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“My correspondence with U.S. intelligence has convinced me the American agent McCracken was operating on his own when he met with Evira. The picture remains vague, but the trail that led him here indicates he was somehow coerced.”
“By Evira? For what possible reason?’
“We don’t know. What we do know is that McCracken went to Japan from here and then to Guam.”
“Guam?”
“The specific destinations are unimportant. What is important is that he is obviously on the trail of something that Evira put him onto. And something is obviously stopping him from seeking outside help, at least openly.”
“What is your point?”
“Evira wanted McCracken for this job and only McCracken. And whatever she has set him after must have something to do with what took her to Tehran to kill Hassani.”
“You’re jumping from one assumption to another, Isser.”
“The key is those ex-soldiers that fired on the crowd in Jaffa. Assume they were there to kill Evira, perhaps McCracken as well. Then Evira reappears in Tehran intending to kill Hassani. The connection is obvious.”
“Not to me.” The old man sighed.
“Evira needed McCracken, and the reason must somehow be connected to her plan to assassinate Hassani. My hope is that if we can find out what McCracken is pursuing, the shadows of Hassani’s plan will gain substance. So McCracken pursues the answers …”
“While we pursue McCracken,” completed the prime minister. “I remember him and his men from the Yom Kippur War in ’73. Good luck finding him, Isser.”
“We have the Americans’ cooperation.”
“With McCracken, that may work against us.”
Yosef Rasin listened to Daniel’s report with growing impatience. Distance had already blurred a connection further disrupted by scrambling and rerouting.
“The boy was gone by the time the women arrived, you say,” Rasin commented when Daniel was finished, apparently more interested in that than in the failure to kill McCracken in the Pacific.
“It was Evira’s work. We have confirmed that much.”
“Interesting she would care enough about the boy to go to such trouble.”
“We have misjudged her before. Several times. Word is she is still at large in Tehran. Do you hear me? Tehran!”
“I hear you, Daniel. There is no reason to shout.”
“What if she knows the truth? What if she understands the true substance of our plan? What if she has figured out the—”
“She understands nothing! You are giving her credit for reaching conclusions she could not possibly have reached.”
“But she is still out there, still dangerous.”
“She is not the problem, Daniel. McCracken is the problem.” Rasin paused. “We can assume he found what he was looking for, of course.”
“Yes.”
“Then his next move is obvious. We must anticipate his questions, and where the answers to those questions will take him. Yes. Yes …”