The Mark of the Assassin (13 page)
A similar scene played out in Syria, at Al Burei, with the same results.
The Libyan camp was the largest and most important. For that target the Pentagon chose Stealth fighters armed with laser-guided bombs, so-called SMART weapons. The aircraft had actually penetrated Libyan airspace before the President’s speech began. They were over their targets when Beckwith delivered the key line of the speech. Seconds later the Libyan desert was aflame.
Ronald Clark rose and strode silently from the room, Tyler and her acolytes trailing after him. Carter looked at Osbourne, who was gazing at the monitors.
“Well,” Carter said, “so much for peace in the Middle East.”
Those were the very same sentiments of the trim gray-haired man seated on the top floor of a modern office block in Tel Aviv. The building served as headquarters of the Central Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks, better known as the Mossad or, simply, the Institute. The gray-haired man was Ari Shamron, the Mossad’s deputy director for operations. When Beckwith finished speaking, Shamron switched off the television.
An aide knocked and entered the room. “We have reports from Syrian radio, sir. Al Burei has been attacked. The camp is ablaze.”
Shamron nodded silently, and the aide went out. Shamron pressed his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose and tried to rub away the fatigue. It was 4:15 a.m. He had been at his desk for nearly twenty-four hours straight. The way things were going, he would probably be there for another twenty-four.
He lit a cigarette, poured black tea from a thermos, and went to the window. Rain rattled against the thick window. Tel Aviv slept peacefully below him. Shamron could take some personal credit. He had spent his entire career in the secret services, destroying those who would destroy Israel.
Raised in the Galilee, Ari Shamron entered the Israeli Defense Force at eighteen and immediately transferred to the Sayeret, the elite special forces. After three years of active duty he moved to the Mossad. In 1972 his fluent French and proficient killing skills landed him a new assignment. He was sent to Europe to assassinate the members of the Palestinian terror group Black September who took part in the kidnapping and murder of the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games. The assignment was simple. No arrests, just blood. Revenge, pure and simple. Terrorize the terrorists. Under the command of Mike Harari, the Mossad team assassinated twelve Palestinian terrorists, some with silenced guns, some by remote-detonated bombs. Shamron, deadly with a handgun, killed four himself. Then, in April 1973, he led a team of crack Israeli troops into Beirut and assassinated two more members of Black September and a PLO spokesman.
Shamron had no qualms about his work. Palestinian guerrillas broke into his family home in 1964 and murdered his parents as they slept. His hatred of Palestinians and their leaders was limitless. But now his hatred had turned to those Israelis who would make peace with killers like Arafat and Assad.
He had spent his life defending Israel; he dreamed of a Greater Israel stretching from the Sinai to the West Bank. Now the peacemakers wanted to give it all away. The prime minister was talking openly about giving back the Golan to entice Assad to the peace table. Shamron remembered the dark days before 1967, when Syrian shells rained down on the northern Galilee from the Heights. Arafat was running Gaza and the West Bank. He wanted a separate Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. Jerusalem! Shamron would never allow that to happen.
He had sworn to use whatever means necessary to stop the so-called peace process dead in its tracks. If everything continued according to plan, he might very well have his wish. Assad would never come to the peace table now. Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank would boil over with rage when they awoke to news of the American strikes. The army would have to go in. There would be another round of terror and revenge. The peace process would be put on hold. Ari Shamron finished his tea and crushed out his cigarette.
It was the best million dollars he ever spent.
Three thousand miles to the north, in Moscow, a similar vigil was being kept at the headquarters of the Foreign Intelligence Service, the successor to the KGB. The man in the window was General Constantin Kalnikov. It was just after dawn and bitter for October, even by Moscow’s standards. Snow, driven by Siberian winds, swirled in the square below. Business was taking him to the Caribbean island of St. Maarten in a few weeks. He would enjoy a break from the never-ending cold.
Kalnikov shuddered and drew the heavy curtains. He sat down at his desk and began working his way through a stack of papers. A committed communist, Constantin Kalnikov was recruited by the KGB in 1968. He rose to the top of the Second Chief Directorate, the KGB section responsible for counterintelligence and crushing internal subversion. When the Soviet Union collapsed, and with it the KGB, Kalnikov kept a senior post in the new service, the SVR. Kalnikov now ran Russia’s intelligence operations in Latin America and the Caribbean. The job was a joke. His budget was so small he had no money to pay agents or informers. He was powerless, just like the rest of Russia.
Kalnikov had watched Boris Yeltsin and his successor run the Russian economy into the ground. He had watched the once-feared Red Army humiliated in Chechnya, watched her tanks rusting for lack of spare parts and fuel, watched her troops go hungry. He had seen the vaunted KGB turned into the laughingstock of the intelligence world.
He knew there was nothing he could do to reverse Russia’s course. Russia was like a vast ship casting about on a rough sea. She took a long time to change course, a long time to stop. Kalnikov had given up on his Russia, but he had not given up on himself. He had a family, after all—a wife, Katya, and three fine sons. Their photographs were the only personal touches in his otherwise cold and sterile office.
Kalnikov had decided to use his position to enrich himself. He was the leader of a group of men—army officers, intelligence officers, members of the
mafiya
—who were selling Russia’s military hardware on the open market to the highest bidder. Kalnikov and his men had sold nuclear technology, weapons-grade uranium, and missile technology to Iran, Syria, Libya, North Korea, and Pakistan. They had made tens of millions of dollars in the process.
mafiya
—who were selling Russia’s military hardware on the open market to the highest bidder. Kalnikov and his men had sold nuclear technology, weapons-grade uranium, and missile technology to Iran, Syria, Libya, North Korea, and Pakistan. They had made tens of millions of dollars in the process.
He switched on CNN and listened to a panel of experts discussing President Beckwith’s speech. Beckwith wanted to build a missile defense system, a shield to protect the United States from international madmen. Those madmen would be beating down Kalnikov’s door soon. They would want to grab as much hardware as they could, and quickly. President James Beckwith had just started an international arms race, a race that would make Kalnikov and his cohorts even richer. Constantin Kalnikov smiled to himself.
It was the best million dollars he ever spent.
It was raining as Elizabeth Osbourne drove westward along Massachusetts Avenue toward Georgetown. It had been a very long night, and she was exhausted. Rock Creek passed below her. She dug through the glove compartment, found a pack of old cigarettes, and lit one. It was dry and stale, but the smoke felt good regardless. She smoked only a few a day, and she told herself she could quit anytime. She would definitely quit if she became pregnant. God, she thought, I’d give anything if I could just get pregnant.
She pushed the thought from her mind. She navigated Sheridan Circle and dropped down onto Q Street. She thought of the dinner party. Snatches of silly conversation played out in her mind. Visions of Mitchell Elliott’s grand house passed before her eyes like old movies. One image remained long after she arrived home, as she lay in bed awake, waiting for Michael. It was the image of Mitchell Elliott and Samuel Braxton, huddled together like a pair of giggling schoolboys in the darkened garden, toasting each other with champagne.
NOVEMBER
11
SHELTER ISLAND, NEW YORK
It was the
New Yorker
that first christened Senator Douglas Cannon “a modern-day Pericles,” and over the years Cannon did nothing to discourage the comparison. Cannon was a scholar and historian, an unabashed liberal and democratic reformer. He used his millions of inherited wealth to promote the arts. His sprawling Fifth Avenue apartment served as a gathering place for New York’s most famous writers, artists, and musicians. He fought to preserve the city’s architectural heritage. Unlike Pericles, Douglas Cannon never commanded men in battle. Indeed, he detested guns and weaponry as a rule, except for the bow and arrow. As a young man he was one of the world’s best archers, a skill he passed on to his only child, Elizabeth. Despite his deep-seated mistrust of guns and generals, Cannon saw himself fit to oversee his nation’s military and foreign policy; he had forgotten more history than most men in Washington would ever know. During his four terms in the Senate, Cannon served as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, the Foreign Relations Committee, and the Select Committee on Intelligence.
New Yorker
that first christened Senator Douglas Cannon “a modern-day Pericles,” and over the years Cannon did nothing to discourage the comparison. Cannon was a scholar and historian, an unabashed liberal and democratic reformer. He used his millions of inherited wealth to promote the arts. His sprawling Fifth Avenue apartment served as a gathering place for New York’s most famous writers, artists, and musicians. He fought to preserve the city’s architectural heritage. Unlike Pericles, Douglas Cannon never commanded men in battle. Indeed, he detested guns and weaponry as a rule, except for the bow and arrow. As a young man he was one of the world’s best archers, a skill he passed on to his only child, Elizabeth. Despite his deep-seated mistrust of guns and generals, Cannon saw himself fit to oversee his nation’s military and foreign policy; he had forgotten more history than most men in Washington would ever know. During his four terms in the Senate, Cannon served as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, the Foreign Relations Committee, and the Select Committee on Intelligence.
When his wife, Eileen, was alive they spent weekdays in Manhattan and weekends on Shelter Island, at the sprawling family mansion overlooking Dering Harbor. After her death the city held less and less for him, so he gradually spent more time on the island, alone with his sailboat and his retrievers and Charlie, the caretaker.
The thought of him alone in the big house troubled Elizabeth. She and Michael went up whenever she could get away for a couple of days. Elizabeth had seen little of her father as a child. He lived in Washington, Elizabeth and her mother in Manhattan. He came home most weekends, but their time together was fleeting and lacked spontaneity. Besides, there were constituents to see, and fund-raisers to attend, and bleary-eyed staff members vying for his attention. Now the roles were reversed. Elizabeth wanted to make up for lost time. Mother was gone, and for the first time in his life her father actually
needed
her. It would be easy to be bitter, but he was a remarkable man who had lived a remarkable life, and she didn’t want his last years to slip away.
needed
her. It would be easy to be bitter, but he was a remarkable man who had lived a remarkable life, and she didn’t want his last years to slip away.
Michael’s meeting with Carter and McManus ran late, and Elizabeth got stuck on the telephone with a client. They rushed to National Airport in separate cars, Elizabeth in her Mercedes from downtown Washington, Michael in his Jaguar from headquarters in Langley. They missed the seven o’clock shuttle by a few minutes and drank beer in a depressing airport bar until eight. They arrived at La Guardia a few minutes after nine and took the Hertz bus to pick up the rental car. The ferries were operating on the winter schedule, which meant the last boat left Greenport at 11 p.m. That gave Michael ninety minutes to drive ninety miles on congested roads. He barreled eastward along the bleak corridor of the Long Island Expressway, expertly weaving in and out of traffic at eighty miles per hour.
“I guess that defensive driving school they put you through at Camp Perry has its applications in the real world,” Elizabeth said, nails digging into the armrest.
“If you want, I’ll show you how to jump from a moving car without being noticed.”
“Don’t we need that special briefcase you keep in your study? What’s it called? A jig?”
“Jib,” Michael corrected her. “It’s called a jib, Elizabeth.”
“Excuse me. How does it work?”
“Just like a jack-in-the-box. Throw the switch, and a spring-loaded dummy pops up. If you’re being followed, it looks like two people are in the car.”
“Neato torpedo!” she said sarcastically.
“It also comes in handy for the HOV lanes.”
“You’re joking.”
“No, Carter keeps one in his car all the time. When he’s running a little late he just throws the switch, and
presto!
—instant carpool.”
presto!
—instant carpool.”
“God, I love being married to a spy.”
“I’m not a spy, Elizabeth. I’m a—”
“I know, I know, you’re a case officer. Keep it under ninety, will you, Michael? What happens if we get pulled over?”
“They taught us a few things about that, too.”
“Such as?”
Michael smiled and said, “I could shoot him with a tranquilizer dart from my pen.” An incredulous look appeared on Elizabeth’s face. “You think I’m joking?”
“You’re such an asshole sometimes, Michael.”
“I’ve been told that a time or two.”
At ten o’clock he switched on the radio to catch the network hourly on WCBS.
“President James Beckwith has picked his man to head the State Department during his second term. He’s longtime friend and political supporter Samuel Braxton, a prominent Washington attorney and power broker. Braxton says he’s honored and surprised by the nomination.”
Elizabeth groaned as Sam Braxton’s tape-recorded voice came on the radio. Michael had been consumed by the case during the last days of the campaign, but like most of Washington he watched James Beckwith’s remarkable victory carefully. The race changed the moment Flight 002 went down. Andrew Sterling was virtually frozen out. Nothing he said or did captured the attention of the media, which had grown bored with the interminable campaign and was thrilled to jump ship to a more exciting story. The Oval Office address sealed Sterling’s fate. Beckwith had swiftly punished the Sword of Gaza for the attack, and he had done it with decisiveness and flair. The missile defense initiative buried Sterling in California. The morning after the speech, the major California newspapers all published articles describing the positive impact the program would have on the state’s economy. Sterling’s lead in California evaporated almost overnight. On election night James Beckwith carried his home state by seven percentage points.
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