country, an observer and reporter of information. He continued looking around, and forgot about history for the moment.
The people were dressed for the oppressive heat, and the bustle of the streets made him think of Manhattan. So many of them had portable radios. He passed a sidewalk restaurant and saw no less than ten people listening to an hourly news broadcast. Jack had to smile at that. His kind of people. When driving his car, the radio was always tuned to an all-news D.C. station. The eyes he saw flickered about. The level of alertness was so pervasive that it took him a few moments to grasp it. Like the eyes of his own security guard. Looking for trouble. Well, that made sense. The incident on Temple Mount had not sparked a wave of violence, but such a wave was expected — it did not surprise Ryan that the people in his sight failed to recognize the greater threat to them that came from the absence of violence. Israel had a myopia of outlook that was not hard to comprehend. The Israelis, surrounded by countries that had every reason to see the Jewish state immolated, had elevated paranoia to an art form, and national security to an obsession. One thousand nine hundred years after Masada and the diaspora, they'd returned to a land they'd consecrated, fleeing oppression and genocide… only to invite more of the same. The difference was that they now held the sword, and had well and truly learned its use. But that, too, was a dead end. Wars were supposed to end in peace, but none of their wars had really ended. They'd stopped, been interrupted, no more than that. For Israel, peace had been nothing more than an intermission, time to bury the dead and train the next class of fighters. The Jews had fled from near-extermination at Christian hands, betting their existence on their ability to defeat Muslim nations that had at once voiced their desire to finish what Hitler had started. And God probably thought exactly what He had thought during the Crusades. Unfortunately, parting seas and fixing the sun in the sky seemed to be things of the Old Testament. Men were supposed to settle things now. But men didn't always do what they were supposed to do. When Thomas More had written Utopia, the state in which men acted morally in all cases, he had given both the place and the book the same title. The meaning of “Utopia” is “Noplace.” Jack shook his head and turned a corner down another street of white-painted stucco buildings.
“Hello, Dr. Ryan.”
The man was in his middle fifties, shorter than Jack, and more heavyset. He had a full beard, neatly trimmed, but speckled with gray, and looked less like a Jew than a unit commander in Sennacherib's Assyrian army. A broadsword or mace would not have been out of place in his hand. Had he not been smiling, Ryan would have wanted John Clark at his side.
“Hello, Avi. Fancy meeting you here.”
General Abraham Ben Jakob was Ryan's counterpart in the Mossad, assistant director of the Israeli foreign- intelligence agency. A serious player in the intelligence trade, Avi had been a professional army officer until 1968, a paratrooper with extensive special-operations experience who'd been talent-scouted by Rafi Eitan and brought into the fold. His path had crossed Ryan's half a dozen times in the past few years, but always in Washington. Ryan had the utmost respect for Ben Jakob as a professional. He wasn't sure what Avi thought of him. General Ben Jakob was very effective at concealing his thoughts and feelings.
“What is the news from Washington, Jack?”
“All I know is what I saw on CNN at the embassy. Nothing official yet, and even if there were, you know the rules better than I do, Avi. Is there a good place to eat around here?”
That had already been planned, of course. Two minutes and a hundred yards later, they were in the back room of a quiet mom-and-pop place where both men's security guards could keep an eye on things. Ben Jakob ordered two Heinekens.
“Where you're going, they do not serve beer.”
“Tacky, Avi. Very tacky,” Ryan replied after his first sip.
“You are taking Alden's place in Riyadh, I understand.”
“How could the likes of me ever take Dr. Alden's place anywhere?”
“You will be making your presentation about the same time Adler makes his. We are interested to hear it.”
“In that case you will not mind waiting, I guess.”
“No preview, not even one professional to another?”
“Especially not one professional to another.” Jack drank his beer right out of the bottle. The menu, he saw, was in Hebrew. “Guess I'll have to let you order… That damned fool!” I've been left holding the bag before, but never one this big.
“Alden.” It was not a question. “He's my age. Good God, he should know that experienced women are both more reliable and more knowledgeable.” Even in affairs of the heart, his terminology was professional.
“He might even pay more attention to his wife.”
Ben Jakob grinned. “I keep forgetting how Catholic you are.”
“That's not it, Avi. What lunatic wants more than one woman in his life?” Ryan asked deadpan.
“He's gone. That's the evaluation of our embassy.” But what does that mean?
“Maybe so. Nobody asked me for an opinion. I really respect the guy. He gives the President good advice. He listens to us, and when he disagrees with the Agency, he generally has a good reason for doing so. He caught me short on something six months back. The man is brilliant. But playing around like that… well, I guess we all have our faults. What a damn-fool reason to lose a job like that. Can't keep his pants zipped.” And what timing, Jack raged at himself.
“Such people cannot be in government service. They are too easy to compromise.”
“The Russians are getting away from honey traps… and the girl was Jewish, wasn't she? One of yours, Avi?”
“Doctor Ryan! Would I do such a thing?” If a bear could laugh, it would have sounded like Avi Ben Jakob's outburst.
“Can't be your operation. There was evidently no attempt at blackmail.” Jack nearly crossed the line with that one. The general's eyes narrowed.
“It was not our operation. You think us mad? Dr. Elliot will replace Alden.”
Ryan looked up from his beer. He hadn't thought about that. Oh, shit…
“Both your friend and ours,” Avi pointed out.
“How many government ministers have you disagreed with in the last twenty years, Avi?”
“None, of course.”
Ryan snorted and finished off the bottle. “What was that you said earlier, the part about one professional to another, remember?”
“We both do the same thing. Sometimes, when we are very lucky, they listen to us.”
“And some of the times they listen to us, we're the ones who're wrong… ”
General Ben Jakob didn't alter his steady, relaxed gaze into Ryan's face when he heard that. It was yet another sign of Ryan's growing maturity. He genuinely liked Ryan as a man and as a professional, but personal likes and dislikes had little place in the intelligence trade. Something fundamental was happening. Scott Adler had been to Moscow. Both he and Ryan had visited Cardinal D'Antonio in the Vatican. As originally planned, Ryan was supposed to backstop Adler here with the Israeli Foreign Ministry, but Alden's astounding faux pas had changed that.
Even for an intelligence professional, Avi Ben Jakob was a singularly well-informed man. Ryan waffled on the question of whether or not Israel was America 's most dependable ally in the Middle East. That was to be expected from an historian, Avi judged. Whatever Ryan thought, most Americans did regard Israel that way, and as a result, Israelis heard more from inside the American government than any other country — more even than the British, who had a formal relationship with the American intelligence community.
Those sources had informed Ben Jakob's intelligence officers that Ryan was behind what was going on. That seemed incredibly unlikely. Jack was very bright, almost as smart as Alden, for example, but Ryan had also defined his own role as a servant, not a master, an implementer of policy, not a maker of it. Besides, the American President did not like Ryan, and had not hidden the fact from his inner circle. Elizabeth Elliot was reported to hate him, Avi knew. Something that had happened before the election, an imagined slight, a harsh word. Well, government ministers were notoriously touchy. Not like Ryan and me, General Ben Jakob thought. Both he and Ryan had faced death more than once, and perhaps that was their bond. They didn't have to agree on everything. There was respect between them.
Moscow, Rome, Tel Aviv, Riyadh. What could he deduce from that?
