She pushed her chair back and stood. She was conscious of the theatricality of the gesture, conscious, too, that her anger was real. The man across the desk from her had put up the cash, but she had done everything else.
“Sit down.”
She didn’t.
“Understand what you’re proposing here. I’m an American citizen. This is treason. Punishable by death. And I’m not in the same place I was when we started.”
Yeah, you married the best Barbie money could buy. I married Glenn Mason. Salome didn’t say a word.
“Orli’s pregnant.”
Her stomach twisted. More proof that the life she’d imagined with Duberman had never existed anywhere but her mind. Strange to know his greatest secret and so little else about him.
“Congratulations.” She choked out the word.
“Thank you. I’m trying not to think about the fact that I’ll be in my seventies when they’re teenagers. So this thing you’re proposing—”
“It’s a long shot. And if we get caught, yes. I understand. There’s only one reason to do it, Aaron.” She rarely permitted herself to use his name. “If we don’t, Iran’s going to get the bomb. And not just one. Sooner or later, they’ll turn that city behind you into a pile of smoke. Maybe your kids will be there when it happens. You don’t care about that, then there’s nothing else I can say.”
He shuffled once more and then shoved the cards away.
“You know how leverage works, right?”
“No more business jargon. Please.”
“Put up a dollar of your own, borrow nine, now you have ten dollars. Then you do something with it. Buy a stock, whatever. If what you buy goes up ten percent, to eleven dollars, you pay back the bank the nine dollars, keep two dollars. That’s leverage. The investment only went up ten percent, but you doubled your money. But if what you buy goes down ten percent, you’re wiped out. You multiply your gains and your losses. You get it?”
“You’re saying this is leverage. The bank being the U.S. military.” She wasn’t sure, but she thought he was convincing himself, the way he had years before, putting the scheme in business terms, his native language.
He grinned. An odd expression. His face wasn’t built for big smiles. “But that’s it. The Pentagon isn’t a bank. If they catch us, they won’t sue us. They’ll string us up.”
She didn’t know where he was going. Silence seemed to be her best choice.
“Do you believe?”
“Excuse me?”
He pointed at the ceiling in all apparent sincerity. “In God.”
In truth, she didn’t. Her depression had wiped out any belief she had in a universal power, much less an afterlife. Any God who allowed the mind to inflict such pain on itself was either nonexistent or impossibly cruel. She preferred the former. But she didn’t think that answer would satisfy Duberman. “God? I guess so. I mean, maybe.”
“That’s no. If you have to think about it, it’s no.”
“No—”
“You don’t have to spare my feelings. Me, I believe. Everything I’ve been given, how could I not? Funny, isn’t it, we’ve never really talked religion before.”
“There’s a lot we don’t know about each other.”
“I guess.” He turned away from her, to the window. “Out there, Tel Aviv, the gays, fine. They haven’t been to temple in their whole lives. Then in Bnei Brak, these ultra-Orthodox with ten children, spending their day mumbling over the Torah.” Duberman folded his hands together, rocked back and forth in his chair, imitating a Hasidic man praying. “Can’t stand each other. Can’t even talk to each other. But they’re all Jews. The Nazis, they were right about that. We’re a race. Not a religion. Not a culture. A race. Brothers in blood.”
Salome thought of Orli, her long blond hair. Of Ethiopians and Chinese converts. But now was not the moment to argue.
“Germans, Iranians, Russians, two thousand years ago Romans, Egyptians then and now — all of them, they all want to stamp us out. Crush us. Nothing else in common, but they all hate Jews. The pogroms and the camps and the wars. All the way back to the Babylonians. We’ve always survived.”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure this is the only way? Treason.”
“I don’t know any other.”
“Then all right. If you can find that highly enriched uranium, we’ll do it.”
She felt as though she were watching them both from fifty thousand feet up. All of Tel Aviv below her, the sea to the west, the skyscrapers along the beach, and she and Duberman floating above, protecting them all without their knowing.
“What are you thinking?”
“That I wish we had a film crew here. Or at least a hidden camera. This moment ought to be recorded for posterity.”
“Not sure that would be a great idea.” He looked down at his desk in a way that let her know they were done, she was dismissed. Amazing that he could make a decision so momentous and then push her aside.
“You have an incredible ability to compartmentalize.”
His nostrils flared in a silent laugh. “You want to stay for lunch, talk about your feelings? Go find the stuff.”
She turned, walked to the door. She knew she shouldn’t say anything to jeopardize her triumph, but she couldn’t help herself.
“Whatever happened to, your first loss is your best loss?”
“Corporate crap. Never believed it. If I had, I would have walked away from The Sizzling Saloon. Don’t you know anything about me? I like to gamble.”
In the next months, she put the pieces together. She found an Iranian exile who could pass as a Revolutionary Guard colonel. And the only man in the world who had a private stash of weapons-grade uranium. She met Duberman in Hong Kong to tell him, get his final go-ahead. She saw that he was thrilled, and half terrified, too. She understood.
Her luck, or Duberman’s God, or both, were on their side. Their new plan worked. Reza played his part as colonel perfectly. They gave the CIA enough evidence to make his story plausible. Only a few months after agreeing to discuss the end of sanctions, the United States and Iran were at the brink of war.
There was only one problem.
John Wells.
Wells tracked Mason to Istanbul. Mason and Salome played back, caught him there. Then Salome messed up. She let Mason convince her to hold Wells prisoner instead of killing him. Wells escaped, killed Mason and four of his men along the way. Salome had barely contained the aftermath. She knew Wells would keep coming. But did he know who she was? That Duberman was behind her?
She’d spoken to Duberman a few days before, to let him know that they had captured Wells and cleared the way for their final move — leading the CIA to the highly enriched uranium. She didn’t want to discuss the new situation over the phone or email, even in code, even through anonymizing software. She flew to Hong Kong for a face-to-face chat.
Now, at last, she heard his confident steps coming toward the living room. Then the man himself. He wore a black turtleneck, dark gray pants, sleek black shoes. He looked like a cool college professor, one who was a little too old but could still fill an auditorium. In fact, the clothes were hand-tailored and cost as much as a car. He looked as he had when they’d met almost a decade ago. She figured he had a high-end anti-aging regimen going, testosterone and human growth hormone and whatever other potions doctors used to stop time. But even guessing at his tricks, knowing his vanity, she felt herself loosen in the usual places. He might be married to another woman, but he would never lose his hold on her.
The realization annoyed her.
“Aaron. Nice of you to make it.”
“Congratulations.” He came to her, wrapped his arms around her, and squeezed. He had never hugged her before. He smelled faintly of an aftershave almost medicinal in its harshness, simple and expensive. She wanted to cradle her head against his shoulder. Instead, she detached herself, stepped back.