Even when they had outdistanced the U.S. Navy vessel, Bryce Babcock couldn't shake a feeling of intense unease.
A sense of dread weighing on his slight shoulders for the first time in days, the secretary of the interior quietly left the bridge.
Chapter 19
Terror hadn't worked.
He wished for all the world it had, but it had not. Nossur Aruch liked terror. Lived for terrorism. In his day, he had found it to be a mighty weapon. A sword that could be brandished from the dead of night against an unsuspecting enemy. An arrow that always struck its target. A bullet fired with unerring accuracy.
Of course, few in the so-called civilized world agreed with Nossur Aruch, leader of the Palestine Independence Organization and director and chairman of the Free Palestine Authority. In the soft capitals of the Western imperialist nations, terrorism was soundly condemned. Practitioners of the art of terror were even hunted down.
They thought it sloppy. A bomb lobbed onto a bus, a grenade tossed into a crowd, a foreign leader shot.
But Aruch knew better. These acts only seemed haphazard. Terrorism was a precise game. But, lamentably, the game had been lost. Practically before it got started.
"Timing is everything," Aruch said, sighing wistfully.
"Sir?"
On the vine-enclosed balcony of his Hebron office in Israel's West Bank, Nossur had thought he was alone. He had forgotten about Fatang, the young PIO soldier who was assigned to protect him. If Nossur Aruch's beloved terror campaign had worked, he would not need such a guard.
Aruch smiled sadly as he glanced at the young man.
"I am a man out of time," he said. "The great war of terror could have been fought a century ago. Two would have been even better." There was sadness in his voice. He sighed into the warm evening air. "Do you know why the Americans won their independence from the English, Fatang?"
"I do not, sir," the youthful soldier replied. His olive face was earnest, his eyes burning with the intensity only the very young and very idealistic could muster. That flame had long ago winked out for Nossur Aruch.
"They fought a terrorist campaign. The British soldiers of the time were used to fighting armies that lined up on one side of an open field. Obeying the laws of civility, the British would line up on the other. Once everyone was in place, each side would shoot and shoot until the last man standing was declared the winner."
"That is foolish," Fatang volunteered.
Aruch nodded sagely. "The Americans thought this, as well. That is why when the British formed their skirmish lines, the American colonists did not. They hid in trees and behind rocks. They used guerrilla tactics. They were most uncivilized in the way they fought their war. And because of this, they won their independence."
The soldier seemed surprised. "Is this true?" he asked.
"Oh, there were other factors to be sure-" Aruch waved "-but this contributed to their victory." The PIO leader's face took on a faraway look. "Of course, they did not go far enough. Had I been there to guide them, the Americans could have fought a real war of terror. With my knowledge, London would now be the capital of the United States. I could have been a colossus in another era, straddling the globe. But thanks to an accident of birth, I am a man out of time."
A morose expression on his face, Aruch turned away from the much younger man.
The FPA chairman wore the plain olive drab fatigues that had become his sartorial trademark. They were so wrinkled it looked as if he balled them up and stuffed them under his mattress every night.
A deep gray mustache scuttled from beneath his large nose, fading into a scruffy white beard.
His eyes bordered on psychotic. They were so wide they gave the impression of a man who didn't blink. Dark irises floated in circular seas of white.
A black-and-white-checked kaffiyeh adorned his head. To foreign observers, it seemed to get larger with each passing year. This was obviously a false impression. The fact was, Nossur Aruch had been shrinking for much of the past thirty years. By his calculations, if he lived longer than another decade, he would disappear into his black army boots.
Many people thought that he was an uglier, hairier, dumpier version of Beatles drummer Ringo Starr. Not Nossur Aruch, however. When he looked at himself in a mirror, he saw a Palestinian matinee idol. Although, granted, a depressed matinee idol.
Lost in thought, Aruch sighed deeply at the growing dusk. His forlorn exhalation of air seemed almost like a recrimination. Knotted hands rubbed the rough concrete of the balcony rail. Tangles of grapevines ensnared the railing. He stared off into the distant twilight.
Less than thirty miles to the north of his secluded balcony sat Jerusalem, a fat target waiting to be struck. Yet it was out of reach.
Actually, that was only true in the metaphorical sense. In point of fact, it was infinitely reachable. Nossur pushed away from the rail.
Fatang stayed at silent attention just outside the French doors that led into the PIO leader's office. He watched as his superior squatted near the edge of the balcony's sturdy inner railing.
In the early nineties, the Nobel committee had awarded the former terrorist its coveted Peace Prize.
To Nossur Aruch, the million-dollar award had been found money. Splurging, he had blown it all on a single special item.
A vast section at the center of the balcony seemed to be overgrown with vines. Aruch grabbed hold of a chunk of what appeared to be branches, tugging them aside. They folded with a plastic-sounding crinkle, exposing a heavy black base hidden beneath.
Aruch pulled back farther, exposing a single white fin.
The young soldier wasn't surprised by what he saw. Often on nights like these, Aruch's trips to his balcony would end in a maudlin moment like this. The ex-terrorist would pine over the road not traveled.
The camouflage netting Aruch peeled back revealed the rocket boosters of a slender missile. Nossur had used the "mad money" granted him by the Nobel Committee to purchase a surplus British long-range Bloodhound MK2 missile.
It was aimed at the heart of Jerusalem.
Obscured by trees and vines, the balcony was set back in an alcove at the center of the private courtyard. The yard itself was surrounded by a high wall. The missile was well hidden from prying eyes.
Aruch had bought the missile on the black market and had it smuggled into the West Bank piece by piece.
An impotent gesture. For, although Nossur Aruch loved terrorism almost more than life itself, he would never use his weapon. He had employed terror tactics in his younger life, but he was a diplomat now. And diplomats did not drop bombs on the heads of their enemies. No matter how strong the desire to do so.
Tears welled in the corners of his crinkling eyes as he studied the magnificent lines of his beautiful prize.
It was a giant paperweight. Nothing more.
He drew in a mucousy sniffle as he pulled the camouflage back across the missile's exposed tail section.
As he headed across the balcony to the open French doors, Nossur blew his big nose on the sleeve of his fatigues. A honking, wet bray. By the look of the splotches up and down the arm, it wasn't the first time.
Fatang marched in behind him.
The leader of the Palestine Independence Organization stepped over to his cluttered desk. The weight of the world on his drooping shoulders, he slumped into his chair.
Although the desk was a jumble of half-crumpled papers, Nossur knew where everything was. He spotted an unfamiliar sheet atop the pile the moment his gaze fell upon the desk.
He scooped up the note.
"What is this?" the PIO leader asked.
"It came while you were napping," the soldier said from his sentry post near the open balcony doors. Sounds from the deepening Hebron night filtered in across the dark yard.