“Hmmm,” Brighton said as he stared at his plate. He looked up at Sara. “How do you feel about Luke? Do you think he is ready? Is he on the right path?”
Sara hesitated, then answered, “He reminds me of you.”
“Me!” Brighton cried.
“Come on, baby, it hasn’t been that long. Try to remember. He is you through and through. You were a rancher from Texas, determined to see the world, determined to knock off the cotton balls that were stuck to your boots. If there was anyone less focused than you were at that age, I don’t know who that would be. I mean, look at our romance. I was ready to get married, but it took you three years—”
“I would have married you after the first date, except I had to finish college . . . ”
“Yeah, that’s a responsible line. You’re responsible now, Neil, but it’s not the way you were then. You were terrified of getting married. It makes me laugh sometimes to think of how you used to act. Here you are now, a big-shot general in the White House, a fighter pilot who has flown as many combat sorties as maybe anyone in the world. And you were afraid of getting married. You were afraid of me.”
Neil took her hand. “You still scare me,” he said.
“Only when you really make me angry,” she laughed. “But you know, Neil, you are so determined now, so focused and single-minded, you probably don’t remember you weren’t always like that. How many summers did you spend backpacking through Europe, going anywhere but home? You stayed away from west Texas like everyone there had the plague. You wanted to see everything that was out there, to experience the world. That’s how Luke is, babe, but it’s not a bad way to be. Even after we were married, we were pretty free spirits, you know. What did we do for our honeymoon . . . ?”
Brighton smiled as he thought. “Wasn’t that great!” he said.
“Yes, it was the most . . . ah, how would you say . . . entertaining two weeks that we’ve ever had. And now Luke wants to go roam through the Alps for a while. I say that we let him. Besides, we couldn’t stop him. He will do what he wants.”
Brighton nodded while he thought, picking at the lemon in his water and sucking it between his teeth. “I just hope . . . ” he said softly.
Sara waited. “You hope what?” she asked.
“I just hope he’s getting ready.”
“Luke will be okay. He has a strong testimony and a compassionate heart. He cares more about other people than anyone I know. He isn’t focused right now, but he still has a few months. This thing with Alicia has really strung him out. I say let’s let him stretch his wings for a few weeks. Then he’ll come home, finish his mission papers, and everything will fall into place.”
Brighton nodded and relaxed. He trusted her intuition more than he trusted anything; she was so keyed to the Spirit it was almost scary sometimes. “All right, then,” he told her. “I guess it would be okay.”
Sara squeezed his fingers lightly, then pulled back her hand. “I’m really, really glad that we could get away for lunch,” she said. “I appreciate you getting away from the White House. I know how difficult it is.”
“Sara,” he answered, “I would rather be here with you than anywhere in the world. I am busy right now, but someday things will be better, I promise. One day soon I’ll retire and then we’ll have lots of time to spend together. After a while, you’ll be so sick of having me around that you’ll beg me to leave.”
“I think not,” Sara answered, “but it will be fun to see.”
The two were silent for a moment. Brighton took a huge bite of his sandwich while Sara poked at her fish.
“Babe, I’ve got to ask you a question,” she said.
Brighton stopped chewing. There was something serious in her voice.
“Were you ever going to tell me about Sam’s picture in the papers? Or were you going to always try to hide it from me?”
Brighton swallowed hard, his throat suddenly tight.
Sara watched him struggle, then continued. “I know you were only trying to protect me, but it really doesn’t help. I mean, if one of the largest papers in the country has a story about my son, claiming the possibility that he and some other U.S. soldiers were involved in some atrocities, don’t you think that I’d like to know that? And I’d like to hear it from you, not my neighbor, and certainly not from the peace activist, military-hater, goober of a Greenpeace feminist who lives down the road.”
Brighton swallowed again. He didn’t know what to say. “The story wasn’t true,” he mumbled feebly.
“Of course. I know that. Everyone knew.”
“I thought . . . I was worried . . . I just wanted to . . . ”
“Protect me. That’s very sweet, dear, but I’m a big girl now. I can take it. I take things like that better than you do. So don’t ever do it again.”
She smiled at him sweetly, but then cocked her head to the side. That was his signal to say “I’m sorry,” and he quickly fell into line. She was right. He was wrong. It had been a dumb thing to do. It belittled her strength and courage, and though his heart was in the right place, it had been a mistake. “I’m sorry,” he told her humbly. And he meant every word.
“That’s okay, babe,” she said. She smiled at him brightly. “This is very good,” she said as she took a bite of her fish.
Ben Gurion International Airport
Tel Aviv, Israel
It was a single shot to the head. The sound of the bullet hit like a puff and the prime minister’s brains exploded out the back of his skull. The prime minister hit the floor in a heap, his knees buckling midstep.
His wife screamed in terror as she fell to his side. And though his arms twitched and jerked, she knew he was dead.
The young Palestinian followed his instructions perfectly.
“Do not get caught!” they had told him. “Do not be taken alive. Do you understand us, Imir, you are not coming home! No man can resist them; they will force you to talk. So do not let them take you! You must follow the plan!”
Reaching to his side, the young Palestinian felt the beveled grip of the small handgun stuffed in the holster at his hip. He pulled it out, shoved it to his temple, and pulled his trigger finger again.
But before he pressed the trigger, a final thought rolled through his head: “If I cannot go home, I go to my god instead.”
The two shots, less than three seconds apart, reverberated through the enormous hangar like rolling claps of thunder through the air. The echoes bounced off the metal walls, making it impossible to detect from which direction the shots had emanated. As the prime minister fell to the floor, the security men sprang into gear. Weapons extended from their bodies and steadied in their hands, they contracted the circle, closing in on their charge. Machine guns appeared out of nowhere. Shouts and screams filled the air. The security men moved constantly, their eyes searching, ready to shoot instantly. As the dead man slumped to the floor, his terrified wife fell at his side, her voice choking on a scream. Two of the bodyguards fell on top of her, driving her to the floor, the guards placing their bodies between the woman and the shots. Another guard fell on the prime minister to protect him as well, but he quickly saw the mess and knew he was lying on a dead man.
Another body fell from the rafters with a sickening thud. Sirens wailed from outside the hangar, and the doors rolled open again. Security men began to swarm through the hangar, seeming to emerge from everywhere. There were machine guns and rocket launchers, grenades, shotguns, and radios.
Less than fifty seconds after the first shot had been fired, an ambulance screeched through the half-closed hangar doors, retrieved the body, then screeched out again. Another ambulance followed, but this one was a decoy that would take another road. Both of the ambulances were escorted by dozens of wailing sirens and police, some on motorcycles, some in cars. The prime minister’s wife was shoved into one of the waiting sedans, which made its way to the hospital by yet a third route.
Twelve minutes after being shot, the prime minister of Israel’s body
arrived at Tel Aviv’s closest hospital.
Union Station
Washington, D.C.
General Brighton’s cell phone went off, then his emergency beeper as well. Sara hesitated, mid-bite, as he punched a small button to quiet his beeper and flipped open his cell. “Brighton,” he answered in a no-nonsense voice.
He listened a moment, his face growing tight. “Are you certain?” he demanded, then listened again. “How long ago did it happen?” He looked at his watch. “Do they know who did it?” he asked. Then he gritted his teeth. “All right,” he said grimly. “You know what to do. Tell the NSA I’ll be there in five minutes. Keep the recall going. Get everyone in . . . no, no, no, don’t send an escort, I’ll catch a cab instead. Be there in five minutes. Keep this line open and call if you get any word.”
The general flipped the phone shut, pushed back his chair, and stood. His face was ashen and he had that long-distance stare in his eyes; though he was looking right at her, Sara knew he didn’t see her anymore. “What’s going on?” she asked timidly. She recognized that look, and it scared her now.
“Let’s go,” Brighton answered.
“What is it?” she said.
Her husband dropped a couple of bills on the table, took her by the hand, and pulled. “You had Ammon drop you off, right?” he asked her.
She nodded as they ran.
“Okay. Take the Metro home. I’ll have Sybil pick you up at the station. Go home and turn on the TV. It might be on by then.”
“Neil, you’re scaring me,” she told him.
He pulled hard on her hand. “It’s okay,” he answered.
Then he thought of his dream. And he came to a sudden stop right there in his tracks.
He knew. Though it didn’t make any sense, he knew that it had begun. He shivered and looked at his wife, staring into her eyes. “Go home,” he said simply. “Don’t worry. It’s okay. Everything will turn out all right. If I come home, it will be late, but I’ll call when I can.”
They had stopped at the bottom of the winding marble stair that led down from the Americana restaurant. He had to go right to the street. She had to go left to the Metro station. He turned and started walking, then came back to her. He held her shoulders tightly, looking into her eyes. “I love you,” he told her.
“I know, babe.”
Brighton turned and ran through the enormous brass doors that led out to the street. A small taxi turnout had been built in front of the station and he ran immediately to the front of the line. Two older men, both of them foreigners, were climbing into the first cab, but Brighton held their door open and bent down to them. “Please,” he begged desperately, “I must have this cab.”
The two men scoffed at him. “Get lost,” one of them said, his English halting but still self-assured.
“Please, I work for the White House. There is a problem. I really need this cab.”
The foreigner took in Brighton’s military uniform and scoffed again. “Are you military?” he asked.
Brighton nodded eagerly.
“Then forget you,” the other sneered, and both of them laughed. One of the foreigners slapped the thin Plexiglas. “Let’s go, cabbie!” he said.
The cabbie looked back and frowned. He was a huge black man with arms as thick as tree limbs and he didn’t look happy now. He stared at Brighton’s uniform and then scowled at the men. “Get out,” he told them.
The two men glared back at him. They didn’t move, but they cursed bitterly.
Brighton reached into the cab and grabbed one of the men by his shirt, pulling him out of the cab and onto the street. The other man cried out, then rolled out of the other side of the cab. Brighton fell in and pulled both doors closed, and the cabbie turned around again. “Stupid French guys,” he muttered. “For one thing, they never tip. And their wives never shave.”
Brighton almost laughed. “Get me to the White House,” he said.
The cabbie looked surprised. “The White House. Okay. You look like you’re in a hurry, mo’n.”
“You’ve got no idea, friend.”
“This some kind of national emergency?”
“You got it, mo’n.”
“Cool,” the cabbie smiled as he turned around and dropped his foot on the gas. “No worries,” he called back over his shoulder as he accelerated away. He started honking his horn to clear traffic before he even hit the main street. Brighton held on to the armrest as the cab sped along. The Jamaican screamed through the first red light, his horn blaring all the while. He bobbed and weaved and cut through traffic, driving like a madman.
Six minutes later they came to the White House. Brighton slapped him on the shoulder, threw some money in the front seat, then jumped out and ran.
Tel Aviv, Israel
The surgeons, a couple of the best in the world, worked frantically to save what was left of the prime minister’s brain. The surgery was chaotic and desperate, delicate and painstaking and frustratingly slow. But when it was over, they had failed. There was simply nothing else they could do.
The respirator breathed for him. The artificial heart pumped his blood through his veins. The sensors looked for brain activity, but there was nothing there.
The truth was, the prime minister had died the moment the bullet had passed through his skull. Now there was no heartbeat, no breath, no life left in him at all.
The spirit had departed his body, leaving lifeless flesh and still blood.
Both of the surgeons recognized it. They had grown sensitive to the subtle changes that take place in the body when there is no more life there. So, though they fought frantically, in the end they knew they would fail.
Two hours after his hurried arrival at the hospital, the president of Israel spoke with the surgeons. He asked a few questions, nodding while he listened to the answers, then placed his hand on one of their arms.
Walking to a chaotic reception area, he announced to the world that the prime minister was dead.
Jerusalem, Israel
The Israeli parliament, the Knesset, met in an emergency session before the sun had gone down. Outside the red limestone building in the center of the government complex at Gavet Ram, eighty thousand demonstrators had already gathered, a number that was growing by ten thousand every hour. Pockets of rioters had mixed with the crowd, and the National Guard had been called to help with crowd control. Though the city was technically in a lockdown, with curfew and travel restrictions imposed, it was impossible to know that from the size of the crowd. The mass was growing every minute in both numbers and rage, the Israeli people’s emotions boiling like water over a white-hot fire.
Opposite the entrance to the Knesset building was an enormous menorah, symbol of the state of Israel. More than twelve feet wide and fifteen feet high, the sculptured menorah was carved with 29 scenes depicting significant events in Israel’s history: the ancient prophets, the Ten Commandments, Ruth the Moabite, Spanish Jewry, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, creation of the modern nation-state. As the mass of mourning and bitter people gathered around the large sculpture, they sensed they would soon add another monumental scene to the carvings on the Menorah’s side. The history of their nation had been altered this day.
The crowd swarmed through the square, some chanting, some singing. A few prayed, but most cursed, pumping their fists in the air.
Not long after the sun went down, the meeting inside the Knesset was ready to begin. Only 93 of the 120 members were present, but it was a quorum, and the president stood at the podium and brought his gavel down. The dark wooden desks were positioned in a U-shape around him and the large chamber was noisy, the legislators talking and shouting and moving around. The president gavelled again, and the noise began to subside, though many still whispered in harsh, angry tones. The mood of the members matched perfectly the mood of the crowd on the street. Anger. Resentment. A demand to do something now!
At twenty past nine, the emergency session of the Knesset was finally brought to order.
&nbs
p; At 9:38, a powerful explosion ripped through the room.
* * *
It had taken more than three years for the bombs to be slipped into place inside the Knesset building. Piece by piece, pound by pound, the powerful C-4 plastic explosive had been smuggled into the building by a single maintenance worker, an immigrant Russian Jew who valued the money more than his adopted home. In order to avoid detection, the explosives had been molded into various forms: plastic milk bottles, fake bananas, radios, cell phones, books, the heels on his shoes, combs, CD cases—dozens of deceptions were required to gather enough explosives to make the nineteen high-power bombs. Once inside the building, the former Russian munitions expert had hidden the powerful explosives inside small metal drums filled with mineral oil to avoid detection from bomb-sniffing dogs, then hidden the drums inside the ceiling air vents. The last thing he did before hiding the bombs was to attach the remote-controlled, long-life RD-182 detonators.
At 9:38, the detonation signal had been sent from a small transmitter outside the government square, bringing the ceiling on the Knesset building down.
Smoke, fire, dirt, and debris filled the night air. The explosions were so powerful, and so brilliantly placed, that the entire roof collapsed, along with two outer walls. Nineteen powerful fireballs rose and merged together into one puffy, black ball, the outer edges illuminated by the heat of the core. The smoke rose, then drifted east, carried by the Mediterranean wind.
The explosions enveloped the crowd in a wave of smoke and heat. Those nearest the building were blown to the ground, pieces of broken tile and mortar piercing their skin and tearing at their clothes. Everyone felt the heat, but no one was burned, for the police had kept the angry crowd a safe distance away. The debris began to rain down on the people: chunks of sandstone and rebar, cement smeared in blood, pieces of human skin and hair. As the explosions rocked the
air, eighty thousand people turned and stared together, watching the building come down.
The crowd stood in horror, their disbelief so complete that not one of them spoke. A silent hush fell upon them as the sounds of wailing sirens filled the air.
The Great and Terrible Page 80
