The problem, Ziegler warned then, was that the prospects for a peaceful transition were slim to none. The worst-case scenario — a full-blown civil war — was also the most likely. At one point in his top-secret report, Ziegler cited a prediction by Israeli academic Ehud Ya'ari, who'd publicly warned that Arafat's eventual departure from the scene would likely result in "the creation of regional coalitions" resembling some kind of "United Palestinian Emirates" but "not necessarily in a peaceful alliance." Any figurehead that emerged to try to take Arafat's place, Ziegler argued, would need to possess "some of Arafat's credentials and prestige in order to obtain international recognition." But, he added, there was a strong possibility that there could be "violent infighting among the competing security services vying for supremacy."
The bottom line: no one in Washington had listened, and now Ziegler's worst fears were coming true.
So far, the Americans were holding their own.
Their armor-plated vehicles and the cement barriers nearby were giving them a decent measure of protection. But McCoy knew it wasn't going to be enough. So did Mancuso. They looked at each other quickly. Both knew they needed an exit strategy — fast.
"Jon, can you get me more ammo?" Mancuso yelled. "I'm almost out." Bennett could hear the fear in Mancuso's voice. It shook what little confidence he had left. Mancuso wasn't panicking. The anxiety in his voice was controlled. It was measured. But it was real. It was palpable. The man was a professional. He was an experienced security agent, trained his whole life to deal with danger. But if — with all that—he was still worried, what chance did Bennett have? He could hear Mancuso shouting to him. He knew Mancuso's life depended on what he did in the next few seconds. He wanted to get up. He wanted to help. But he couldn't. He was terrified — afraid to fight, afraid to move, afraid of death and what might be on the other side.
Suddenly, someone called to Bennett through the gunfire.
"Jon, I've got it."
It was Galishnikov. Desperate to do something to help his friends, the Russian scrambled out from under the car. He jumped into one of the open passenger doors and rummaged around the backseats.
"Where is it?' Galishnikov yelled. "Where's the ammo?
"I'm out," Mancuso yelled.
"/ can't find it," Galishnikov kept screaming. "/ can't find it."
Mancuso ejected his last spent clip, and rushed in behind Galishnikov. He opened a second ammo box concealed under the passenger seats, reloaded, and came out firing.
CRACK. CRACK.
Bennett pressed his face against the wet pavement. He couldn't see where the shots were coming from, but they were close — too close — and he didn't dare move. He looked over at McCoy, terrified that she might have been hit. She wasn't. She was fine, and fighting back. Bennett began to breathe again. Then he heard it again. Two bursts — CRACK, CRACK — CRACK, CRACK. Mancuso wasn't more than two feet from McCoy. Bennett saw Mancuso's head snap back. Then he dropped to the ground. Bennett watched him fall. He watched a pool of blood begin to form around him.
A flash of lightning stung his eyes. Time stood still. Bennett could feel himself slipping into shock, and it all came rushing back. Jerusalem a few weeks before. The "four horsemen of the apocalypse." The gun battle that left Dietrich Black dead and Bennett bleeding to death on the floor. He could still see the Iraqi terrorist — the black hood, the fire pouring from the muzzle. He could smell the smoke, the gunpowder, the rancid stench of death. He could still feel both rounds — the excruciating pain, like his body had been set on fire — one grazing his right shoulder, the other tearing off a chunk of his left forearm.
But somehow he'd survived. Mancuso was dead. The man had a wife, Four kids. He'd worked for the State Department for sixteen years. He'd been handpicked by the president to protect Bennett and McCoy, and now he was gone. Why? It didn't make sense. What made a husband and father put himself in harm's way for complete strangers? What possessed any man to give up his own life to save others?
A shudder rippled through Bennett's drenched body. Waves of guilt washed over him in the rain. He was paralyzed by fear. He couldn't move, couldn't think, and shame began to consume him. He'd give anything to be back in New York, crunching numbers, cutting deals. What the hell was he doing in Gaza? What the hell made him think he could cut a deal with the Devil? The stupidity of it all suddenly hit him — a Wall Street strategist in a world where money couldn't help him. It didn't walk, didn't talk, couldn't shoot an AK-47, and neither could he.
The rules here were different. There weren't any rules at all.
Maybe Dr. Mordechai was right, thought Bennett, suddenly oblivious to the gunfire all around him. "The problem with you Americans is that you don't believe in evil," the former Mossad agent had told Deek Black in the summer of 1990, just before Iraq invaded Kuwait. "You guys at the CIA and the FBI — and definitely the guys at State — don't properly anticipate horrible, catastrophic events because you don't really believe in the presence of evil, the presence of a dark and wicked and nefarious spiritual dimension that drives some men to do the unthinkable."
Bennett hadn't known what to make of that before. It went against everything he'd been brought up to believe.
"I believe Saddam Hussein is both capable of and prone to acts of unspeakable evil, and you don't," Mordechai had added. "I'm right, and you're wrong. It's not because I know more than your government. I don't. I know less. But I believe that evil forces make evil men do evil things. That's how I anticipate what can and will happen next in life. That's how I got to be the head of the Mossad, young man. And why I'm good at it. It's going to be one hell of an August, and my country is going to suffer very badly because your country doesn't believe in evil, and mine was born out of the ashes of the Holocaust."
Bennett looked around him. Bullets whizzed over his head. Fires raged. Explosions were erupting all around him. Mordechai was right. He hadn't believed in evil. Not really. Not until this. Now he could feel it in the air. He could smell it, taste it. The radicals had to be stopped. Suicide bombers and the groups and states that funded them — they weren't misguided or misunderstood. They were controlled by evil. Pure evil. And evil couldn't be negotiated with. It could only be hunted down, captured, or destroyed. Like a cancer or ebola. Ignore those possessed by evil and they'd kill you. Fast or slow, it didn't matter. Remove some but not all traces of the virus and it would still kill you. Fast or slow, it was just a matter of time.
Bennett could see it clearly now. To misunderstand the nature of evil is to risk being blindsided by it. For evil, unchecked, is the prelude to genocide.
It wasn't all Muslims. Most gave their religion mere lip service. But radical, fundamentalist Islam required jihad, a war of annihilation against Christians, Jews, and Western culture and modernity. It was a lethal virus in the global body politic. It was an unholy war, and it was winner take all. There could be no truce, no cease-fire, no hudna, as it was known in Arabic. You were either on offense, or you were losing. Fast or slow, it didn't matter, and time was not on your side.
He couldn't just lie there and do nothing. Friends of his — men and women willing to put their lives on the line to protect him — were being slaughtered. Last time it was Deek Black. This time it was Mancuso. But it could have been McCoy. It could have been him. At least the last time he'd gone down fighting. At least the last time he'd tried to fight back. Bennett could feel his heart racing. His hands were trembling. His face felt hot. A surge of anger so intense and so foreign it scared him even more began forcing its way to the surface.