The Last Days (16 page)

Bennett arrived at the “holding room.”

It was actually Tariq's private quarters, and Bennett entered the seven-digit access code Tariq had given him earlier. The door unlocked electronically. Galishnikov stood up immediately as Bennett entered their room. Sa'id remained seated. He said nothing, but his eyes spoke volumes. The storm raging over Gaza was also raging within him.

“Jonathan, how are you, my friend?” Galishnikov asked, shaking his hand.

“Hanging in there, thanks—please, have a seat. You guys all right in here?”

“Couldn't be better,” the Russian lied.

“You guys aren't watching the coverage?”

“Ibrahim has…well, we've both had enough sadness,” Galishnikov answered.

“Look, I'm really sorry about this—you guys don't deserve to—”

“
Nyet, nyet,
please, Jonathan, you don't have to explain. We're safe. We're well fed—well, Ibrahim refuses to eat, but I'm well fed—and we're all washed up.”

Despite the gloomy mood, Bennett couldn't help but laugh.

“You've had showers then?”

“That, too,” said Galishnikov, a thin smile on his face.

He sat down on the couch beside Sa'id. Bennett sat down next to them in an armchair. There was so much he needed to tell them, and even more he needed them to do. But it was also apparent to him that he needed to respect the trauma both men were experiencing. Each handled it differently, and there was an awkward restlessness in the room. Finally, Sa'id broke the silence.

“Arafat was like a father to us,” Sa'id began. “He was like our Moses. He wandered around with us through the wilderness for many years. He talked tough to the Pharoahs—to Bibi and Sharon and Doron, all of them. He put our cause on the world's map, and that was no small thing. But there's more to leadership than making noise. You must make progress. You must achieve something. And where are we now? Arafat lived by the sword, and now he's died by the sword. For decades, he's been playing a dangerous game—talking peace in English and encouraging an armed revolution in Arabic. I couldn't swallow it and so I left to make my fortune elsewhere. Because if you play a game like that you're going to lose. I don't care how clever you think you are, you cannot live a lie for so long without being found out. I knew one day Arafat's game would catch up with him, and now it has. And who is suffering? Is he? Is Arafat? No. Perhaps he's in the arms of seventy virgins. I don't know. I'm not a devout Muslim, and for all his talk I'm not sure if Arafat even believed in Allah. I don't know where he is right now. But I know where I am. I know where my people are.”

The man stared into the screen of a television that wasn't on.

“He should have followed Oslo,” Sa'id continued. “He should have taken Barak's deal at Camp David. He should have accepted Bush's Road Map. Anything. But he didn't. And now we have nothing.”

Bennett was silent. He'd never heard Sa'id talk this way.

“Just like Moses,” Sa'id continued, “Yasser Arafat had his day, but he never took us into the Promised Land.”

Galishnikov was hardly religious, but he snorted at the irony.

“Well, OK, we're already in the Promised Land,” Sa'id conceded.

“The
over
-Promised Land,” his Russian friend added.

“Yes, the Palestinian people are here geographically. But have we arrived emotionally? Diplomatically? Financially? Look at us. We are lost. We are a proud people, Jonathan, rich in culture and heritage and intellectual capital. And we have a serious case to make to the world. We have suffered much, first under the Egyptians and the Jordanians who did nothing to give us a state, and now for all these years under the Israelis who treat us like rabid dogs in a kennel, present company excepted.”

Galishnikov waved him off, unoffended.

“After all these years,” Sa'id continued, his anger controlled but rising, “after all this suffering, after so many wars and intifadas, what do we have to show for ourselves? Our people live in squalor. Around the world, ‘Palestinian' means terrorist, criminal, suicide bomber. And what did Arafat do? Did he lift a finger to stop the violence? Recently, yes, a bit. But for years—while we lived under curfew, and the tourists dried up, and incomes went into the toilet—did he rein in the violence? Did he throw the gangsters into prison? Did he claim the moral high ground and lead us to a new era of peace and prosperity, much less freedom and democracy?”

No one said a word.

“No. Arafat said nothing—did nothing—when Saddam Hussein sent money to Palestinian families to turn them into suicide bombers. How did that help us? The E.U. and you Americans send millions of dollars in aid to help build a Palestinian economy and society. So where is it? Who has gotten wealthy here in Palestine? No one. I made my money in the Gulf, not here. Why? Why can't Palestinians grow and prosper here? The Israeli occupation? Of course. But that's not the only reason. It was because of Arafat and his corrupt regime. Everybody knew it. Let me put it to you this way, Jonathan. Are you on the
Forbes
four hundred list yet?”

Bennett shook his head.

“No, not yet. But I'm sure you will be someday. That's a dream of yours, I know. And I'm sure you're going to achieve it. But Yasser Arafat? He's already on that list.
Forbes
says he has—
had
—more than one-point-three billion stashed away, probably in Swiss banks. How? How did Arafat make that money? Was he a Wall Street strategist like you? Did he produce and refine and ship oil like me? How did he make all that money? That's my point, Jonathan. Yasser Arafat got rich stealing people's money, stealing people's dreams, while the Palestinian people kept sinking further and further.

“Jonathan, I'm not about to say these things in public, in Ramallah or Jenin or Gaza City. Certainly not now. I'd be shot by Rajoub or Dahlan or one of Arafat's other thugs. But someone has to say these things. Someone has to stop this madness. It's insanity. I mean, just look at what has happened. Arafat spent the last twenty years turning up his nose at various peace plans and funding an entire generation of suicide bombers. Now the whole country is committing suicide.”

“Do you see
any
chance for peace, Ibrahim?” Bennett asked, wondering why he'd done so the moment the words left his lips.

The businessman leaned back and sighed.

“You know, the strange thing, Jonathan, is that I do. People want this madness to end. It was true when I woke up this morning. I think it's even more true now. They want the freedom of which your president speaks—freedom from hatred, freedom from fear. They want democracy. They're worn down—worn out. Not everyone. There are still radicals out there, obviously. But with your war against Iraq, something happened. People watch Al-Jazeera. They listen to the BBC. They see most Iraqis rejoicing that Saddam and his evil regime are dead. They see Iraqis free even to curse the very Americans who set them free. And Palestinians want that, too. They're hungry for freedom after being starved half to death. And they're beginning to believe that a half a loaf of something might be better than nothing at all.”

 

European and Asian financial markets were already reacting.

Investors around the world could see the handwriting on the wall and were rushing to short-sell American companies. Most foreign stock exchanges were down 5 to 6 percent already. MacPherson expected the New York Stock Exchange to lose between 6 and 8 percent at the opening bell. Tech stocks would probably do worse. The NASDAQ could easily lose upward of 8 or 9 percent. Trillions of dollars in corporate value were going up in smoke, or about to. It would only get worse.

He needed to get the economy back on track. Not just consumer confidence. He needed to muscle his flat tax plan through Congress and he'd lay out all the details during the State of the Union, just a few weeks away.

At least the prospect of imminent, cheap, abundant Gulf oil was calming inflation fears. Iraq, after all, had the second-largest proven oil reserves in the world, behind Saudi Arabia. Once Iraqi wells got back on line, the price of sweet crude would begin to drop from the wartime high of over $43 a barrel back to around $25 a barrel. Once Iraq's oil industry was modernized, prices could very well drop below $20 a barrel. And if the Medexco oil and natural gas fields off the coasts of Israel and Gaza ever got going…well, perhaps that was too much to think of, dream of, or imagine.

But the president couldn't help it. He knew the moment was right. The Middle East
was
poised for a new era of peace and prosperity. Bennett's plan was solid. Saddam Hussein was gone. Rank-and-file Palestinians were exhausted from years of fighting. So were most Israelis. There was a deal to be had—and somehow he couldn't let go.

 

It was quiet for a moment.

Bennett desperately needed something for his pain, but he was riveted by what Sa'id was saying. He'd just made a similar case to the president. Still, it was better hearing it from a Palestinian of Sa'id's intellect and reputation.

“Where do we go from here, Jonathan?” asked Galishnikov.

“Well, first of all, Dmitri, the president would like you to get on the phone with our old friend, Dr. Mordechai.”

“What's Eli got to do with any of this? He hasn't run the Mossad for years.”

“The president wants to know what he makes of all this, and so do I. What he's hearing from his friends in the Mossad? What's he hearing from the top brass of the IDF? You know, the inside stuff, the stuff they're not telling Langley.”

“
Da,
I can do that,” Galishnikov agreed, “so long as they give me an open line.”

“Already done. The lines have been up in here since I walked in.”

“Good. What specifically are you looking for?”

Bennett thought about that for a moment, then looked Galishnikov in the eye.

“Just tell Eli to follow the money, Dmitri—he'll know what I mean.”

 

“I want the AG to cut a deal with Iverson.”

There was silence at the other end of the line.

“You sure?” Corsetti finally said.

“I'm sure,” said the president. “There's too much at stake. We need to know what he knows as fast as we can. Get on the phone with Neil. Have him make the deal within the hour. I want a full progress report by close of business today. Got it?”

“I got it,” said Corsetti, “I'm just not sure I like it.”

 

“What about me?” Sa'id asked. “What can I do?”

Bennett could see in his eyes the fire of determination.

“Well, that gets complicated. Israel's offering to send in ground forces.”

“Good God, no,” Sa'id blurted out. “Jonathan, you can't let him—”

“Why not?” Galishnikov broke in. “Of course Doron should send in forces. It's your people that are getting slaughtered up there, Ibrahim.”

“You think I don't know that? Of course I know that,” Sa'id snapped back with such force he took both Bennett and Galishnikov off guard. “But you cannot let the Israelis attack. You'll be playing right into their hands.”

“Whose hands?” Galishnikov asked.

“Whoever set this in motion. I don't know who it was. But it sure as hell wasn't Dahlan or Rajoub or one of the other Arafat minions.”

“Why? How do you know?”

Now it was Bennett asking.

“I know because I know. Because they're dogs, not men. When Arafat told them to sit, they sat. Lie down, they lied down. Roll over, they rolled over. They're incapable of original thought. They were terrified of Arafat. They couldn't function without him. He gave them their power, their money. He gave them their orders. There's no way one of them turned on him. Besides, he was an old, sick man. Sure, they were all plotting how to succeed him when he died, but I'd bet my life that none of them would dare lay a finger on him. Absolutely not.”

“Then I need to know who did, Ibrahim.”

“How? How can I…”

“Get on the phones. See if anyone you know in the legislature is still alive. Call them at home. Get them on their cell phones. Pump them for information. We need to know who was behind this, first of all, and we need to know what the legislature wants to do next.”

“What about Doron?”

“You've got to tell your people that Doron is about to unleash.”

“Jonathan…”

“I know—believe me, I know—but whatever's left of the Palestinian government has got to step up to the plate and make its case to the president and to the world.”

“Did you tell the president—”

“I did—exactly the case you're making—that an Israeli invasion is a death blow to the peace process, pure and simple.”

“And what did he say?”

“He's thinking about it. I don't know what he's going to do. But Ibrahim, listen to me. People are getting butchered up there. You guys aren't watching it. But every network in the world is broadcasting live images of a Palestinian civil war, and the political pressure for somebody—anybody—to do something is going to become unbearable. You don't want the Israelis in here. The Israelis don't want the E.U. in here. We don't want the U.N. in here.”

“So where does that leave us?”

“We're screwed,” Galishnikov muttered.

He was up now. He was pacing and lighting a cigarette.

“No, no, no—listen to me, Ibrahim,” Bennett insisted, looking the man square in the eye. “Listen to me. You get on the phone to every member of the Palestinian Legislative Council you possibly can. Find out what they know. Take their temperature. Get their reaction. Find out what they want to do next. Find out who
they
want to lead the Palestinian people now that Arafat is gone.”