stay awake. The kidnappers would be calling at midnight. Because he had given Habte the sat-phone with the stronger battery, he would power the device moments before the appointed contact time. He had plenty of thinking to do before then, about the mine, the kimberlite, and about Harry. As midnight approached, he felt his palms get sweaty and his heart race. There was a knot in his stomach that cramped his breathing.
He feared for the retribution Harry would suffer for the death of the European at the Ambasoira Hotel. Mercer knew it would be bad.
Washington, D.C
Dick Henna had tried unsuccessfully to contact Mercer as soon as he left the Gradys, and when he couldn’t reach the geologist, he called the White House. The president was in Alabama consoling the victims of a recent tornado and unavailable despite his desire for continuous updates. The man spent the night in Huntsville, returning to the White House more than twenty-four hours after Henna had made his discovery. He finally got the president on the phone shortly after seven in the evening.
“Yes, Dick, what can I do for you?”
“Sir, I’m calling about Prescott Hyde.”
“What have you got?”
“I’d rather not say over the phone, Mr. President. I’m in my car right now heading into town. I should be at the White House in another twenty minutes.”
“We’re throwing a party here tonight for last year’s Super Bowl champion Seahawks.” The president was from Cincinnati, but he had met his wife while attending Washington State. He’d waited half a lifetime for this occasion. “I’ll be in the main ballroom.”
“After you hear what I’ve got to say, you won’t be in the mood for a party.”
Traffic was snarled crossing the Potomac, delaying Henna by an hour. The guard at the south gate checked him through quickly, and he parked in the underground garage. The main ballroom was filled to capacity, men in tuxedos and women attired in glittering gowns. There was the usual coterie of film stars and Washington elite as well as about a hundred of the biggest men Henna had ever seen. Despite the relaxed atmosphere, the largest men, the team’s offensive line, still mustered around their handsome young quarterback, protecting him as effectively as they did on the field. The young superstar seemed grateful for the phalanx of teammates shielding him from the predatory advances of some of the city’s more infamous man-eaters.
The president was at the head of the room, chatting with the team’s coach. The First Lady stood stiffly at his side, bored with the whole affair. For Administration insiders, it was no longer a secret that their marriage would end as soon as his term in office was over. The president was just a few years older than Henna, but didn’t look anywhere near his age. His body was trim despite a legendary appetite, and his hair was thick, gray just at the temples and along the edge of a boyish cowlick.
Henna ignored the introduction to the team’s coach and took the president by the arm. He spoke only when they were out of earshot of the other guests. “Prescott Hyde was killed by the Israeli government, probably the Mossad.”
In less than a minute, they were seated at the sofa cluster in the Oval Office. The president fixed each of them a scotch and listened to Henna’s description of his time with the Gradys and about Selome Nagast and her connection to Israel. “Call Lloyd Easton at State if you want verification of his phone call from the Israeli Prime Minister,” Henna concluded.
“I’m doing one better.” The President’s outrage was contained behind a calm expression, but it poisoned his voice. He roused a White House operator and had an international connection a moment later.
In Jerusalem, it was after two o’clock in the morning but David Litvinoff, the Israeli prime minister, was wakened by an aide as soon as it was learned that the President of the United States was calling.
“Mr. President, this is an unexpected surprise,” the Russian-born Jewish leader said.
“Does the name
There was a weighty pause on the secure phone line. “Yes, it does,” the Israeli admitted. “Is she okay?”
The question took the president off guard, but he was too angry to consider why it had been asked. “She’s going to be put in the Virginia gas chamber if we get our hands on her. She murdered a top State Department official and his wife, burning their house to cover her tracks. Do you know anything about this?”
“Damn,” Litvinoff muttered. The president could hear him swing himself out of bed, mumbling something to his wife. “Mr. President, I am going to my study. I will call you back in just a few minutes. I can clear this up for you, but it’ll open a whole new set of problems.”
“Well?” Henna asked when the president put down the phone.
“He’s calling me back, but it sounds as though he’d been expecting me to call.”
“He knows Selome Nagast?”
“Apparently. He said he would explain everything, but it’s going to cause us trouble.”
“Any idea what he means?”
The phone rang before Henna received his answer. The President put the phone on speaker mode. “David, Dick Henna of the FBI is with me, and we both want an explanation why one of your Mossad agents is going around killing members of my administration.”
“It is fitting that he is there,” Litvinoff replied. “Selome Nagast does not work for Mossad. She’s a member of Shin Bet, our version of your Federal Bureau of Investigation, and she did not kill Prescott Hyde.”
“How do you know I was talking about Hyde? I doubt his death made the Jerusalem newspapers.”
“Mr. President, if you’ll permit, I will explain,” Litvinoff said. “This is going to take a few minutes, so please bear with me.
“You know that I am facing a vote of no-confidence in the Knesset that will dissolve my government and call for general elections. If this happens, Chaim Levine, my current defense minister, will probably become our new P.M. I don’t need to remind you of his facist views and his plans to tear up the peace accords with our Arab neighbors. He also has this ridiculous idea about destroying the Dome of the Rock and rebuilding Solomon’s Temple in its place. He has tremendous support since the Wailing Wall massacre two months ago. Even our moderate majority is leaning toward his camp.”
“I don’t need the political lesson, David. I have my own sources. Our prediction is that he’ll defeat you by a five-to-three margin. We don’t want to see it happen any more than you; the guy is a lunatic.”
There was a new gravity to Litvinoff’s voice. “What I’m about to tell you will damage relations between our two countries for many years to come. I would have rather not admit this, but I see no other way. The greater good must be considered.” Henna and the president exchanged glances. “The Mossad has cultivated an asset in your National Reconnaissance Office, a highly placed photo interpreter. I would rather not reveal his name at this point. To do so would put his life in danger. However, he has been feeding us information gathered from your spy satellites, including the latest-generation Medusas.”
Henna hated the idea of allies spying in the United States. Enemies he could understand, but Israelis using the U.S. in this way infuriated him. His hands clenched. He wondered if Admiral Morrison or Colonel Baines knew about this conduit and doubted they did.
“He started with the NRO two years after the first of those spy craft was launched and discovered a forgotten set of pictures taken during the ill-fated 1989 flight of the first Medusa. Because of security restrictions, he couldn’t pass them to us through his normal channels, nor could he steal them directly. They could not be copied either. I understand it has something to do with the type of paper used in the printing process. However, he devised a plan to get them out of the NRO involving an Air Force officer as an unwitting courier. Our agent expected to meet up with the officer later that evening, but Major Rosen, the courier, discovered that he had them, realized their value, and made his own plans for disposing of them. As you know, they ended up with Prescott Hyde.
“Realizing he’d lost the images, our agent contacted his superiors, outlining what was on the pictures. Their contents came to the attention of Chaim Levine.”
“I thought the Mossad was a civilian agency. Doesn’t the military have its own intelligence arm?” Henna spoke for the first time. He recalled Rosen was the guy that the CID investigator said they’d already arrested. That meant the Israelis still had a spy operating in the NRO. He made a mental note to pass this new piece of
