Duto started down the stairs. Rudi shook his head and dragged himself up, step by step. He reached the top step breathless, as if he’d just crested Everest. Duto wrapped him up, dragged him inside, where he flopped into a cracked leather recliner that had probably seemed luxurious in 1987.
“Don’t die, Rudi. Trouble if you die.” Duto poured him a glass of water and tried not to stare as five long minutes passed. Finally, Rudi sighed and put down the glass. He looked around the cabin, his eyes settling on the jammers, each the size of a deck of cards, with a single green light blinking steadily on top.
“I’m not sure I’m comforted by the fact you think we need those.”
“With your accent, nobody could understand you anyway,” Duto said.
“You don’t like my English, learn Hebrew.” Rudi coughed lightly into his hand. “This an agency ride?”
“Boeing. Tell me I’m seeing the chemo and not the cancer, Rudi.”
“It’s good I look like this. Means they’re still trying to beat the thing. That’s what I tell Esther.” His wife. “I’m not sure she believes it.”
“Do you?”
Rudi tapped his chest, like he was carrying a baby inside and not a tumor. “You want to hear all about it? My sad story?”
Duto found himself shaking his head.
“I didn’t think so. So your turn to talk. And it better be worth my time, Vinny. My very limited time.”
Duto explained the last month, how he’d gotten a tip that led Wells to Glenn Mason, how Wells tracked Mason to Turkey and killed him. How Duto and Shafer and Wells were convinced that the uranium in Istanbul hadn’t come from Iran.
“You think some other service is setting Iran up?” Rudi said. His brow lifted as he tried to raise his nonexistent eyebrows. “Us? You think we did this?”
“I wanted to ask.” Even though I already know you didn’t. Unless Aaron Duberman works for the Mossad, and that’s a conspiracy too far.
“No.”
“You’ve been out of the loop—”
“Even if I were dead, I’d hear. And we’d never do it, if you caught the Mossad tricking you this way it would destroy the U.S. — Israel relationship forever. Come on, Vinny. You didn’t fly all this way for that.”
“I didn’t.”
“What, then? You think the FSB, Putin making a mess? Too risky.”
“Agree.”
“Then what?”
“What if it’s not another country? What if it’s a private group?”
“I’m supposed to be the one who’s sick. Maybe you have a brain tumor, Vinny. It’s impossible.”
“How well do you know Aaron Duberman?”
Rudi leaned back in his seat. “Christ,” he muttered.
Duto explained that Mason had lost millions of dollars at Duberman’s 88 Gamma casino in Macao before quitting the CIA and disappearing. That a Pakistani ship captain connected to the smuggling had also lost tens of thousands of dollars at Duberman’s casinos. That Duberman had never explained the rationale for his massive donations to the President.
Rudi stared him down. Duto knew the look welclass="underline" You expect me to believe this nonsense? “It’s thin, I know. But it fits.”
“You haven’t gone to anyone with this.”
“Not yet.”
“Because you know how crazy it sounds.”
“It’s the only explanation for Mason. Remember a few weeks ago, I asked you about those assassinations in Europe, the bankers and the others helping Iran?”
“You think it was the same group.”
“Duberman’s first try at stopping the program. When he saw it wasn’t working, he decided on something more radical.”
“All right. Say it’s true.” Though Rudi didn’t sound convinced. “You don’t think we asked Duberman for this?”
Duto lifted his hands. “Of course not. But he’s important over here, newspapers, political donations, you must have a file on him.”
“We started paying attention to him about ten years ago, he spent $135 million on Radio Zeta, that’s a national channel here, lot of influence. We’re going to look at someone like that. Then he donated $180 million to the Holocaust Museum for what they’re calling the Memory Project, you know about that?”
Duto shook his head.
“They’re keeping it quiet. A lot of people have tried to lock down the survivors, get them on video before they die, and they’ve been successful. This is coming at it from the other end—”
“The Nazis? Why would they—”
“It’s not about putting anyone in jail. They’re old, too. Find the ones who want to relieve their consciences. See if they have any physical evidence they want to share. It’s controversial, because some people think it equates us and them, why should we need them to prove what we already know? And because we’re paying them—”
“Paying?”
“Not interviews. Papers and pictures. Anyway, Duberman is funding it. Seven, eight years ago, he made the donation. Not a pledge, either. He promised on a Sunday, the money came by Wednesday. So the Prime Minister started to see him. Maybe twice a year. Two or three times, I sat in also. And I can tell you, yes, back then he was very worried about Iran. We told him the truth, we’re doing what we can, but war is unrealistic, they have fifteen times as many people as we do, all we can do is push the levers we have.”
“He ever hint he might do anything himself?”
Rudi considered. “No. Though in the last meeting, he said something I thought was strange, he asked me directly if I had the resources I needed. The PM didn’t like that. He said, Aaron, we’re a grown-up country, we have our own military, we set our own budgets for our foreign policy. Duberman knew he’d gone too far. He apologized.”
“That was the last time you saw him?”
“Maybe we shook hands at a cocktail party. But the last time we ever talked seriously, yes. After that, I asked our analysts for a full report on him. They ultimately concluded he was honest in his support. He has homes here, and he dated Israelis even before he married Orli. Not one of these American Jews who constantly meddles but has never been here.”
“Which gives him even more incentive.”
“It’s an interesting theory. But you know what happens if you go to the President or your new DCI with this. And no evidence.” Rudi shook his head. “If we had strong leads that the uranium wasn’t from Iran, I would know.”
“I’d settle for a weak lead.”
“I’ll ask. But everyone knows I’m sick. They’ll wonder why.”
“Whatever you get, I’ll be grateful.” Now they had come to the question Duto didn’t want to ask. “We have one more lead. Mason’s boss was a woman.”
“That leaves half the planet.”
“This operation was put together right and tight. Somebody found Mason. Not Duberman. He wouldn’t have known where to look or how to make the approach. He had to have a cutout. This woman. She would be a professional, or at least a semipro.”
“Just say it. You think she’s Mossad. An Israeli. A Jew.”
“Do you think Aaron Duberman would have used someone who wasn’t Jewish as a cutout?”
“A billionaire Jew pushing the United States into war. With the help of a mysterious Jewess.” Rudi chomped down hard on the last word. “This is Protocols of the Elders of Zion stuff, Vinny. Tell me again how Israel benefits if it goes public.”
What Duto had feared he’d say. “You want us to invade Iran, Rudi?”
“If that’s the alternative to this, maybe.”
“You have to get in front of it. It’s gonna come out, Rudi. You help, I’ll make sure you get credit.”